Sentimental Value Wins the Nordic Council Film Prize, and Norway Sweeps the Board
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value has picked up another trophy. On October 20, the film won the 2026 Nordic Council Film Prize, which comes with DKK 300,000 (roughly $45,000) split between director and co-writer Trier, co-writer Eskil Vogt, and producers Maria Ekerhovd and Andrea Berentsen Ottmar. The jury called it "an instant classic of Nordic cinema."
A very decorated year
If this feels like a victory lap, it is. The film took the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2025 and won the Oscar for Best International Feature in March, Norway's first win in that category. The Nordic prize is the regional capstone: it is awarded by the Nordic Council, the cooperation body of the Nordic countries, and it goes to one film from a shortlist of six. This year's other nominees were Beginnings (Denmark), Birita (Faroe Islands), A Light That Never Goes Out (Finland), The Love That Remains (Iceland) and Kevlar Soul (Sweden). The formal presentation is set for October 27 in Helsinki.
Why this one stuck
Sentimental Value is a family drama about a filmmaker, played by Stellan Skarsgård, who reappears in the lives of his two grown daughters with a script and an agenda. It is a quiet film. No franchise, no big hook, a house that is practically a character. Trier has a habit of making intimate stories that read as universal, and the jury seems to have said as much, praising its ability to make a personal story feel bigger than itself, per Filmofilia's account of the Screen Daily report.
There is an interesting side note: Norway took every Nordic Council prize this year, in all five categories, which has never happened before, per the Sweden Herald. That is a good year for a small country's cultural exports, and a reminder of how much of the best recent cinema is coming from outside the usual studio pipeline.
If you haven't seen it, this is the nudge. [AFFILIATE: Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World on Blu-ray (Criterion/Neon) ]
Stellan Skarsgård, star of Sentimental Value. Photo: Elena Ringo / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0. Top image: Joachim Trier, Kevin Payravi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0