Breaking the Waves

October Films | Release Date: November 13, 1996

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

81	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 28 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

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. Read full review

100

David Ansen

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

100

Film.comKeith Simanton

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

100

Peter Stack

One of the most haunting and vital movies of the year. Read full review

100

Roger Ebert

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

100

New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein

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

100

Mr. ShowbizF. X. Feeney

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

100

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]

100

Ali Catterall

Philosophically complex, spiritual but anti-religious, harrowing yet hopeful. Read full review

Scott Tobias

The simplified, handheld camerawork and the idea of “cutting for emotion” rather than continuity gets the most out of his actors, who are free to clash and improvise within a scene without worrying about hitting their marks. Read full review

Peter Travers

"Waves" is a spellbinder. Read full review

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. Read full review

Keith Phipps

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

Dave Kehr

One of the most emotionally devastating movies of the decade. Read full review

David Stratton

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

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. Read full review

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. Read full review

Richard Corliss

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

Film.comJohn Hartl

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

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

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

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. Read full review

Film.comTom 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.

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. Read full review

Desson Thomson

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

EmpireAngie Errigo

As frustrating as it is rewarding. Read full review

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. Read full review

Mike Clark

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

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]