LOS ANGELES — Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” became the first Norwegian film to win best international feature film at the 98th Academy Awards, Sunday, March 15. The victory capped a months-long awards run for the family drama and delivered Norway’s first win in the category after six previous Norwegian nominations.
The official 98th Academy Awards results show the film beat entries from Brazil, France, Spain and Tunisia. The win also completed a rare Oscar run for a Norwegian film, one that reached well beyond the international-feature race.
Sentimental Value turns a Cannes breakout into an Oscar first
The Academy had already signaled the film’s crossover strength with nine nominations, including best picture, best director, original screenplay, film editing, best actress for Renate Reinsve, best supporting actor for Stellan Skarsgård and two best supporting actress nominations for Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas.
That breadth of support grew out of a story rooted in intimate family conflict. The film follows actress Nora, her sister Agnes and their estranged father Gustav, a once-celebrated director who tries to turn old wounds into a new project. When Nora refuses the role, the arrival of an American actress pushes the family deeper into questions of art, memory and emotional inheritance.
“I’m just a film nerd from Norway,” Trier said as he accepted the award, before turning to the responsibility adults bear toward children caught in war and political failure.
Sentimental Value extends Joachim Trier’s Oscar arc
The road to Sunday’s win began months earlier, when the film won the Grand Prix at the 78th Cannes Film Festival. That May breakthrough gave Norway a serious international-feature contender, and the momentum continued when the Norwegian Oscar Committee chose “Sentimental Value” as the country’s submission in August.
That submission announcement also framed the movie as the next chapter in Trier’s Academy rise. It noted that his previous feature, “The Worst Person in the World,” had already reached the Oscar race in 2022, making “Sentimental Value” feel less like a one-off upset than the payoff from a steadily building international profile.
For Norway, the result was bigger than a single statuette. It was a signal that a national cinema long admired on the festival circuit can now turn critical prestige into the Academy’s highest level of international recognition.
