Joachim Trier’s film Sentimental Value has been praised at the Cannes Film Festival with an incredibly long standing ovation.
Sentimental Value has made history at Cannes as it received a 19-minute standing ovation – the third longest ovation in the festival’s history.
It premiered at the Grand Théâtre Lumière on Wednesday night and wowed the audience with a tale about a successful actor who is dealing with crippling stage fright and complicated relationships with her family.
The comedy-drama is reportedly moving and meditates on sisterhood, fatherhood, and abandonment.
The film is set in Oslo and comes from Danish-born Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who was praised for his 2021 film The Worst Person in the World.
Starring Renate Reinsve (who also appeared in The Worst Person in the World), Stellan Skarsgård, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Elle Fanning and Cory Michael Smith, it has a completely stacked cast who all looked in awe by the reception of the film.
The festival has become known for some outrageously long standing ovations to show the audience’s admiration for a film.
In top spot is Guillermo del Toro’s 2006 Pan’s Labyrinth with 22 minutes, then the 2004 documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11 taking second spot with 20 minutes.
So far at the 2025 festival, The History of Sound starring Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal received a nine-minute standing ovation, while Pillion got an eight-minute applause.
Scarlett Johannson’s directorial debut, Eleanor The Great, received a six-minute ovation, as did Highest 2 Lowest from Spike Lee.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme received a seven and a half minute ovation, and Die, My Love with Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence.
The film has also received a huge Rotten Tomatoes score with a 100% ranking from the 10 critics who have already released their reviews of the film.
For Indie Wire, David Ehrlich said: ‘A layered masterpiece that “The Worst Person in the World” director Joachim Trier has been working toward for his entire career.’
Richard Lawson said for Vanity Fair: ‘Trier has once again crafted a film that is graceful and limber, thoughtful and surprising. Sentimental Value doesn’t land with the same wallop as “Worst Person”, but it is plenty affecting in its own insightful, poignant way.’
For Variety, Peter Debruge said: ‘I tend to think of “therapy through filmmaking” as a bad thing, by which I mean that artists with unresolved personal issues would do better to sort those matters out in private. Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” offers an inspiring exception.’
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