Sightlines · reception

How The Promised Land was received

2023 · Nikolaj Arcel · The Promised Land on Sightlines

The arc

Premiered in competition at Venice 2023 to warm reviews and rode a wave of 'Mads Mikkelsen's best in years' talk; then Denmark's Oscar entry made the international-feature shortlist but missed the final five, which fans still file under robbery.

What’s debated

The perennial fan squabble is over the villain — cartoonishly, moustache-twirlingly evil to some, one of the most satisfyingly hateable antagonists of the decade to others.

Its footprint

On Letterboxd it lives as 'the Mads Mikkelsen potato movie' — a stern Danish epic about growing potatoes on a heath became a running joke, affectionately, in thousands of reviews. Critics everywhere shorthand it as 'the Danish western.'

Where it stands

A crowd-pleasing modern epic and a fixture of 'recent films that feel like classic Hollywood' lists — essential viewing for the Mads faithful.

Did you know? Arcel wrote the lead for Mads Mikkelsen — their reunion a decade after A Royal Affair (2012) — and told him flat out: 'If you say no, I'm not going to do the film.'

Named by the director

• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) — Arcel called it his 'one major influence,' saying he watches it annually and even borrowed its lens and camera approach.
• David Lean — Arcel named Lean as the touchstone for the film's old-fashioned 1950s–60s epic look, over any western influence.