Sentimental Value (2025)

Gustav Borg wants to film his family’s pain inside the actual family house, and the first person he asks to star is the daughter he walked out on. That’s a terrible plan, and Joachim Trier knows it. It runs 135 minutes at the pace of an awkward family dinner, and the side jabs at the movie business, streaming money included, feel slight next to everything else. Everything else is extraordinary. Renate Reinsve plays Nora, an actress whose stage fright nearly keeps her from going on, and she makes every flinch feel earned. Stellan Skarsgård is brilliant as Gustav, charming and impossible, a man who would rather direct his feelings than have them. Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas is the quiet heart as Agnes, the sister trying to hold everyone together. Elle Fanning is lovely as the American star who senses she’s miscast. A 9.2 because it’s funny, wise and devastating about families who can only talk through their work. $7,354 says you walk through the house you grew up in tonight, in your head, room by room, before you fall asleep.

What works: Reinsve, Skarsgård and Lilleaas are all superb, and the film finds both humor and grief in a family that can only talk through art.

What doesn’t: At 135 minutes it’s slow in stretches, and the satire about the movie business and streaming money feels thin next to the family story.

Who it’s for: Anyone with a complicated parent and a box of old family photos they haven’t opened in years.