Brothers · reception & legacy

How Brothers has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A festival hit on release — it took the Audience Award at Sundance 2005 and cemented Susanne Bier's international breakout — but today it mostly circulates as 'the Danish original,' rediscovered by viewers working backwards from the 2009 Hollywood remake.

What's debated

The perennial fight: is Jim Sheridan's 2009 remake with Tobey Maguire a worthy retelling, or proof you should have just watched Bier's original?

Its footprint

It lives in culture largely through its remake — Brothers (2009) with Maguire, Gyllenhaal and Portman — making it a go-to exhibit in every 'the original is better' thread, and a key entry in the mid-2000s wave of Danish dramas Bier wrote with Anders Thomas Jensen.

Where it stands

A cinephile's 'watch this instead' pick — beloved-but-under-seen Danish drama, and the film that put Bier on the road to her In a Better World Oscar.