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Sentimental Value: Plot, Cast, Themes and Cannes Award

Joachim Trier’s 2025 family drama follows two sisters, their estranged filmmaker father and an actor drawn into their strained family dynamics. It won the Cannes Grand Prix.
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Sentimental Value is Joachim Trier’s 2025 family drama about two sisters and their estranged filmmaker father, whose attempt to reconnect by offering a role to one daughter instead draws an American star into the family’s unresolved tensions. The film competed at Cannes and won the festival’s Grand Prix.

What is Sentimental Value about?

Nora and Agnes reunite with their father, Gustav, a once-renowned director hoping to make a comeback. He offers Nora, an actor, a role in his new film. She declines, so he gives the part to Rachel, an eager young Hollywood star. Rachel’s arrival brings an outsider into a family already negotiating estrangement, memory and old wounds.

The setup makes the father-daughter conflict immediately legible, but the sisters are not simply observers of it. Nora and Agnes have their own complicated relationship, and their responses help shape how the family adapts. The Cannes synopsis foregrounds that family dynamic, while the film’s story within a story connects Gustav’s creative project to his effort to reach his daughters.

Who made the film, and who is in the cast?

Joachim Trier directed Sentimental Value and co-wrote its screenplay with Eskil Vogt. The principal cast is Renate Reinsve as Nora, Stellan Skarsgård as Gustav, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as Agnes, and Elle Fanning as Rachel. The film was produced in 2025. Cannes lists Norway, France, Denmark and Germany as its production countries; the British Council database gives a broader co-production list that also includes Sweden, so country credits depend on the record consulted.

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What does the title mean, and what are the film’s themes?

Memory, family and the house

The family home can be read as more than a setting: it carries the sisters’ shared history and links generations. That makes “sentimental value” a fitting way to think about the emotional weight attached to places and memories, even when those memories are difficult. The MK2 production notes describe the house as a link between generations; this is useful context, not a single required interpretation of the title.

Art as an imperfect attempt to communicate

Gustav’s screenplay and his offer to Nora can be understood as attempts to say what he cannot express directly. But offering her a role also risks treating her as material for his project rather than as an actor with her own agency and career. The tension is not simply whether art can express private feeling; it is whether a creative gesture can reach someone when it also places demands on them.

Sisterhood and reconciliation

The story’s emotional center is not only the father’s return. Nora and Agnes must navigate their bond as the family changes around them. The plot leaves room to consider what reconciliation might require—and whether tenderness can coexist with disappointment rather than erase it. At Cannes, Trier described tenderness as “the new punk,” saying he wanted to believe people could see one another and find a sense of reconciliation. That remark offers context for the film’s emotional register, not a definitive explanation of every scene.

Personal feeling is not the same as autobiography

The film’s interest in private history and creative work may feel personal, but that does not make its fictional events a direct account of Trier’s life. In a 2026 interview, he said that making his private thoughts public in his work “would be my nightmare.” The distinction matters: a film can explore intimate material without functioning as autobiography.

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Did Sentimental Value win at Cannes?

Yes. It competed at the 2025 Festival de Cannes and received the Grand Prix. The British Council UK Films Database also records a Cannes 2025 competition world premiere and a Toronto International Film Festival 2025 selection.

How long is Sentimental Value?

Catalog listings differ slightly, so use the runtime attached to the edition or listing you are consulting: Cannes gives 135 minutes, The Criterion Collection lists 133 minutes, and MK2’s press notes round the duration to 2 hours 15 minutes. These are separate published listings, not runtimes to average into a single figure.

Rank #4
DIE BRCKEN AM FLUSS (BLU-RAY) [1995]
  • The disk has English audio.
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Where can you watch or buy Sentimental Value?

Streaming availability depends on country and date; the available catalog information does not establish a current streaming service by territory. For a physical copy, Criterion lists 4K UHD + Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD editions. Check the current listing and local retailer for availability, since formats and stock can change.

Criterion’s listed supplements include a conversation between Trier and Mike Mills, selected-scene commentaries, interviews with four principal cast members, deleted scenes, a trailer, English subtitles including SDH, and an essay by Karl Ove Knausgård. The film is Criterion Spine #1311. Choose among the listed formats according to your player and whether the extras matter to you; the catalog listing does not establish prices, regional disc coding or availability in every country.

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Quick Recap

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Bestseller No. 4
DIE BRCKEN AM FLUSS (BLU-RAY) [1995]
DIE BRCKEN AM FLUSS (BLU-RAY) [1995]
The disk has English audio.
$20.18

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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