Breaking the Waves · reception & legacy

How Breaking the Waves has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It arrived already anointed — Grand Prix at Cannes 1996, Roger Ebert's best film of the year, an Oscar nomination for its unknown lead — and it has never really left the canon; what's shifted is the frame, as it's now read as the opening of von Trier's 'Golden Heart' trilogy and ground zero for every argument about him since.

What's debated

It's the ur-text of the eternal von Trier fight: is he a sadist who tortures his female characters, or is Bess the most transcendent, saint-like heroine of the '90s — and can both be true?

Its footprint

The chapter-break landscape panoramas scored to '70s rock became one of the most imitated formal flourishes of the decade, and its final image remains one of the most argued-over endings in modern cinema — people either surrender to it or throw things at the screen.

Where it stands

Firmly in the 'you must have seen this' tier for art-house cinephiles, and a Letterboxd shorthand for 'this film emotionally destroyed me.'

Named by the director

Influences Lars von Trier has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• Carl Theodor Dreyer — Von Trier has repeatedly named Dreyer as his master, and framed Breaking the Waves' spiritual, miracle-touched drama as working in his lineage.
• Ordet (1955) — Von Trier invoked Dreyer's film of faith and miracles as the touchstone for what Breaking the Waves attempts.