Breaking the Waves

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Breaking the Waves

R

1996

2h 39m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

84%

Tomatometer

64 Reviews

91%

Popcornmeter

25,000+ Ratings

In a small and religious coastal town, a simple, devoutly religious Scottish woman, Bess McNeill (Emily Watson), finds a partner in an oil rig worker from Norway, Jan Nyman (Stellan Skarsgard). However, the relationship grows strained when Nyman breaks his neck in a horrific work accident on the rig and becomes paralyzed. Unable to perform sexually and suffering mentally from the accident as well, Jan convinces Bess to have sex with other men, which she comes to believe is God's work.

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Critics Consensus

Breaking the Waves offers a remarkable testament to writer-director Lars von Trier's insight and filmmaking skill -- and announces Emily Watson as a startling talent.

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Kevin Maher

The Times (UK)

08/04/2023

5/5

[An] earnest, yet harrowing, heartbreaker...

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Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

08/04/2023

4/5

Von Trier’s patent insincerity and facetiousness could be read as a satire on movie emotionalism, or as its own kind of conceptual art. Either way, it’s quite an experience.

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David Ansen

Newsweek

02/26/2018

There are few movies around that take such huge risks: this is high-wire filmmaking, without a net of irony.

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Bianca Garner

Filmotomy

10/10/2024

Breaking the Waves is hardly an easy watch. But, it’s a powerful film which stays with you long after it has finished. I never quite know what I am going to get with a Lars von Trier film, and there’s something so exciting about that.

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Michael Atkinson

Spin

12/27/2022

There may be no way to prepare for the shock of Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves, a film that accumulates moral momentum as it rolls on and bears down on you in its last half hour like a lightning strike.

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Wallace Baine

Santa Cruz Sentinel

02/22/2019

B+

Emily Watson gives this musty spiritualism a flesh and-blood sympathetic center. Her purity of emotion, be it bliss, fear or sorrow, are convincingly unactorly and the camera -- even Von Trier's handheld pseudo-documentary one -- loves her face.

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Lars von Trier

Director

Emily Watson

Bess McNeill

Stellan Skarsgård

Jan Nyman

Katrin Cartlidge

Dodo McNeill

Jean-Marc Barr

Terry

Adrian Rawlins

Dr. Richardson

Open Hearts

93%

90%

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Synopsis

In a small and religious coastal town, a simple, devoutly religious Scottish woman, Bess McNeill (Emily Watson), finds a partner in an oil rig worker from Norway, Jan Nyman (Stellan Skarsgard). However, the relationship grows strained when Nyman breaks his neck in a horrific work accident on the rig and becomes paralyzed. Unable to perform sexually and suffering mentally from the accident as well, Jan convinces Bess to have sex with other men, which she comes to believe is God's work.

Director: Lars von Trier
Producer: Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Vibeke Windeløv
Screenwriter: Peter Asmussen, Lars von Trier, David Pirie
Distributor: October Films
Production Co: Lucky Red, Zentropa Entertainment
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 4, 1996, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 14, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $4.0M
Runtime: 2h 39m
Sound Mix: Surround

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