Breaking The Waves

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

True art is a journey to somewhere you've never been, and there has never been a movie quite like Breaking the Waves.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

One of the most haunting and vital movies of the year.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Not many movies like this get made, because not many filmmakers are so bold, angry and defiant.

New York Daily News Dave Kehr

One of the most emotionally devastating movies of the decade.

Mr. Showbiz F. X. Feeney

Not only one of the best films of the year, it's one of the best films of the decade.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A movie about the passions of simple people, and it's done with such extraordinary empathy and commitment that it all but pulls you under. [29 November 1996, Friday, p.A]

Variety Staff (Not credited)

Watson is a major find as Bess. Graced with delicate, expressive features, she gives an extraordinary performance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

What Von Trier arrives at is a complex, contemporary, and deeply moving exploration of faith.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

A narrative path leading from the sincere to the ludicrous, and culminating in a final image of flabbergasting transcendance, gives Breaking the Waves its surprising power.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

"Waves" is a spellbinder.

Newsweek David Ansen

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

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

With this artlessly profound and affecting story of love, von Trier emerges as one of those blessed filmmakers who've managed to blend their early stylistic flamboyance with enough human empathy to make their work both visually and emotionally compelling.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

If not for a somewhat forced catharsis during the epilogue (the weakest segment of the movie), Breaking the Waves would have been more wrenching than it is.

TV Guide Staff(not credited)

A trying, contrary mix of religion and carnality that teeters on the verge of preposterous self-indulgence.

Time Richard Corliss

In its pagan fervor, this is an almost religious experience.

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

This is a dark, often funny walk through Ingmar Bergman turf.

Film.com John Hartl

This long, sometimes hard-to-watch movie is a challenge, but it has authority and raw power.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

You won't come out of it indifferent, and even if it winds up enraging you (I could have done without most of the ending myself), it nonetheless commands attention.

Film.com Tom Keogh

Whether or not Breaking the Waves succeeds as a profound work is something that's hard to say after one viewing, but it is certainly a wholly original piece of work.

Slate Sarah Kerr

Audiences are likely to embrace Breaking the Waves as something rare and fierce and innovative, a passport into the depths of passion, but some people will reconsider when they get home.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Shallow where it would be meaningful, demanding leaps of faith it has not earned, this film's marriage of arresting technique to empty thinking is not unique, only frustrating.

USA Today Mike Clark

The longer the movie drones on, the queasier it gets. [6 June 1997, Life, p.3D]

Film.com Keith Simanton

It was a bleak allegory -- a desperate, sullen, and moderately sick tale.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

For this mortal, the film converts piety into pathology and then converts it back again at the end with a Song of Bernadette conclusion. I don't know what the title means. I do know that this ridiculous film won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.[ Dec. 9, 1996]

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Although it contains many visually compelling passages and some provocative moments, the movie is strangely banal and simplistic.