Breaking the WavesMovies like Breaking the Waves
- Key Features:
- Religious fanaticism, Sacrifice, Guilt, Faith, Paralysis, Small town, Sexuality, Moral dilemma, Tragedy, Grief, Isolation, Mental illness, Marriage, Self-destruction, Scandinavia
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Art house enthusiasts, Drama lovers, Mature audiences, Cerebral
- Emotional Arc:
- Devotion → Despair
Breaking the Waves

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.
Breaking the Waves
A married fisherman struggles to reconcile his devotion to his male lover within his town's rigid traditions.

Cecilie and Joachim are about to get married when a freak car accident leaves Joachim disabled, throwing their lives into a spin. The driver of the other car, Marie, and her family don’t get off lightly, either. Her husband Niels works in the hospital where he meets Cecilie and falls madly in love with her.

A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.

A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town, she learns that their support has a price.

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

The deeply held religious convictions of an idealistic young priest are challenged when he must face extraordinary events within his own congregation.

A penetrating study of a marriage on the rocks, set against the backdrop of a small Mediterranean fishing village. Both a stylized depiction of the complicated relationship between a married couple and a documentary-like look at the daily struggles of the inhabitants of Sète in the South of France.

A strong-willed peasant girl is sent by her father to the estate of some local aristocrats to capitalize on a rumor that their families are from the same line, but is left traumatised from her experiences.

Two Swedish/Norwegian half sisters go on a winter diving trip in Northern Norway, when they get trapped after a rockslide.

Although theorised, no one is really ready when a mountain pass above the scenic and narrow Geiranger fjord in Norway collapses and creates a tsunami over 300 feet high. A geologist is one of those caught in the middle of it.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.

In a windswept fishing village, a mother is torn between protecting her beloved son and her own sense of right and wrong. A lie she tells for him rips apart their family and close-knit community.

A man with a troubled past is released on parole. He finds work as a church organist and develops a rewarding relationship with a priest and her young son. However, his past soon catches up with him.

A Bedouin village in Northern Israel. When Jalila's husband marries a second woman, Jalila and her daughter's world is shattered, and the women are torn between their commitment to the patriarchal rules and being true to themselves.

During a scorching summer in a Belgian-Dutch border village, eight teenagers play games of discovery to break the listless monotony. They challenge each other and themselves and pretty soon, their sexual curiosity starts to blur the lines between right and wrong. As innocence is crushed in depraved games and sexual exploitation, the teenagers soon turn into ruthless predators.

A young couple moves to a quaint southern town. Soon their perfect getaway turns out to become a living hell when dark secrets and lethal passions spiral out of control.

Tore, a young lost soul involved with an underground Christian punk movement, falls in with a dysfunctional family who test his seemingly unwavering faith.

Scripted by Ingmar Bergman, this very personal film is about a destructive affair which wrecks the marriage of an actress (Marianne) and musician (Markus). Wanting to continue the affair, Marianne moves in with her lover. But she is tormented by Markus' decision not to let her have custody of their daughter. Finally Markus announces he may have a solution to the stalemate, but this leads to deception, lies and ultimately, tragedy.

Anita, a young woman with a troubled childhood and a hunger for love, finds a soul mate in Erik, a kindly college student.

A thriller in which a battle of philosophies between a fundamentalist Christian and an atheist escalates into a lethal battle of wills.

Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.

A married couple move back to his childhood village to start a family but a surprise visit from the husband's brother ignites sibling rivalry and exposes the lies embedded in the couple's relationship.

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

The continuation of Joe's sexually dictated life delves into the darker aspects of her adult life and what led to her being in Seligman's care.

An American oil company sends a man to Scotland to buy up an entire village where they want to build a refinery. But things don't go as expected.

A director and screenwriter pen a script and, in the process, blur the line between fiction and reality.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.

A young drifter working on a river barge disrupts his employers' lives while hiding the fact that he knows more about a dead woman found in the river than he admits.

Together for 20 years, a couple that has grown apart over time receives difficult news that will impact the entire family. As they try to make sense of the changes, they end up rediscovering their love for one another.

After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.

Anne, a brilliant and dedicated advocacy lawyer specialising in society’s most vulnerable, children and young adults, lives what appears to be the picture-perfect life with her doctor-husband, Peter, and their twin daughters. When her estranged teenage stepson, Gustav, moves in with them, Anne’s escalating desire leads her down a dangerous rabbit hole which, once exposed, unleashes a sequence of events destined to destroy her world.

Nothing gets between Anne Marie and her board. Living in a beach shack with three roommates, she is up before dawn every morning to conquer the waves and count the days until the Pipe Masters competition. Having transplanted herself to Hawaii with no one's blessing but her own, Anne Marie finds all she needs in the adrenaline-charged surf scene - until pro quarterback Matt Tollman comes along...

A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.

The wife of a British Judge is caught in a self-destructive love affair with a Royal Air Force pilot.

Handsome Dutchman Stijn is the star of an advertising agency with his buddy Frenk and a hot womanizer. The boys start their own agency and Stijn marries colleague Carmen, who accepts his incurable greed for truly meaningless one-night-stands. Even fatherhood and a move to the boring country go well, until Carmen gets breast cancer. Now their lives are turned upside-down, maybe wrecked

A man named Seligman finds a fainted wounded woman in an alley and he brings her home. She tells him that her name is Joe and that she is nymphomaniac. Joe tells her life and sexual experiences with hundreds of men since she was a young teenager while Seligman tells about his hobbies, such as fly fishing, reading about Fibonacci numbers or listening to organ music.

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.

In 1933, a young woman and her father discover an Alabama plantation whose inhabitants live as if slavery had never been abolished. Feeling a sense of duty to those behind the heavy gates, she stays to liberate the people and see them through their first harvest. With four of her father's colleagues and a lawyer, she faces the daunting task of resurrecting the place known as Manderlay.

The chronicles of four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.

Hanna and Simon are in a 20 year marriage with an unexciting relationship. By chance, they both meet and start separate affairs with Adam. Adam has no idea that his two lovers are married, until they are all found out when Hanna becomes pregnant, with the natural doubts stemming from their situation.

On Haeundae Beach, a guilt-ridden fisherman takes care of a woman whose father accidentally got killed. A scientist reunites with his ex-wife and a daughter who doesn't even remember his face. And a poor rescue worker falls in love with a rich city girl. When they all find out a gigantic tsunami will hit the beach, they realize they only have 10 minutes to escape.

A group of families on a tropical holiday discover that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly – reducing their entire lives into a single day.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.

A packed cruise ship traveling the Atlantic is hit and overturned by a massive wave, compelling the passengers to begin a dramatic fight for their lives.

A controlling father’s attempts to ensure that his two children succeed in high school backfire after his son experiences a career-ending sports injury. Their familial bonds are eventually placed under severe strain by an unexpected tragedy.

Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.

Awaking from a coma to discover his wife has been killed in a car accident, Ben's world may as well have come to an end. A few weeks later, Ben's out of hospital and, attempting to start a new life, he moves home and is befriended by a beautiful young neighbour Charlotte. His life may be turning around but all is not what it seems and, haunted by visions of his dead wife, Ben starts to lose his grip on reality.

Tragedy strikes when a woman named Joyce's son falls through the ice on a frozen lake and is trapped underwater for over 15 minutes. After being rushed to the hospital, the 14-year-old boy continues to fight for his life as Joyce, her husband and their pastor stay by his bedside and pray for a miracle.

Isaac and his pregnant wife visit a remote Norwegian village to claim an unexpected inheritance. The couple finds themselves caught in a nightmare when they encounter a sinister cult that worships a sea-dwelling deity.

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers.

At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.

After dating a wonderful man, Hope comes back home, sees her daughter Jennifer and goes to sleep. She wakes-up in the woods with a psychopath...

Two stories for the price of one: a video store clerk tries to get acquainted with a waitress; a man beats his pregnant wife, unaware that her brother is a violent racist.

The loss of their young daughter threatens to destroy the love and faith of two married musicians.

A man who returns home to find his wife cheating on him on their anniversary. He holds her and her naked and humiliated lover captive at gunpoint while he decides whether or not he's going to kill them. The story, inspired by true events, takes place over one day and is set in New Orleans during a stifling heat wave.

A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.

When a deadly secret rots the mind of a grieving widower, the decision to work alone on a deserted island morphs into a terrifying race to save his sanity and his life.

An English-German filmmaking couple retreat to Fårö for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Ingmar Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.

With her husband Jack perpetually away at work, Margaret Hall raises her children virtually alone. Her teenage son is testing the waters of the adult world, and early one morning she wakes to find the dead body of his gay lover on the beach of their rural lakeside home. What would you do? What is rational and what do you do to protect your child? How far do you go and when do you stop?

Dean and Cindy live a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. They appear to have the world at their feet at the outset of the relationship. However, his lack of ambition and her retreat into self-absorption cause potentially irreversible cracks in their marriage.

In the last days of a dying logging town, Christian returns to his family home for his father Henry’s wedding. While home, Christian reconnects with his childhood friend Oliver, who has stayed in town working at Henry’s timber mill and is now out of a job. As Christian gets to know Oliver’s wife Charlotte, daughter Hedvig, and father Walter, he discovers a secret that could tear Oliver’s family apart.

The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father's religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel's wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone's beliefs are put to the test.

A young woman is hired to care for an elderly man who lives on an island off the Greek coast. When she arrives there the man warns her that his daughters are evil and dangerous. The woman discovers that one of the daughters is a crazed nymphomaniac who pursues, and seduces, everyone in the house, including her crippled sister.

An American couple, Paul and Marianne, spend their vacation in Italy and experience trouble when Marianne invites a former lover and his teenage daughter to visit, which leads to jealousy and dangerous sexual scenarios.

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

When a teenager suddenly disappears without a trace, the case is assigned to an alcoholic police officer who maintains a complicated relationship with his own troubled teenage son, suspected of drug trafficking.

The true story of teen surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm in a shark attack and courageously overcame all odds to become a champion again, through her sheer determination and unwavering faith.

At the Mêle sur Sarthe, a small Norman village, farmers are affected by a crisis. Georges Balbuzard, the mayor of the city, is not one to let them down and decides to try everything to save his village...

A young farmer in rural Yorkshire numbs his daily frustrations with binge drinking and casual sex, until the arrival of a Romanian migrant worker.

A gallerist risks her family and flourishing career when she enters into an affair with a talented painter and slowly loses control of her life.

Chris, a wealthy divorcee, lives in a high-tech house of his own design in Montana. His life changes when he meets Sky, a mysterious young woman who draws him out of his shell and moves in after Chris is injured.

Lukas, a young schizophrenic man, has to deal with a new town, a new relationship, and the paranoia in his head.

While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.

A passenger on a cruise ship develops an irresistible infatuation with an eccentric paraplegic's wife.

A woman's life takes an unexpected turn when she falls for her boss's wife. She must soon defend herself as she becomes entangled in a web of malice.

A novelist is blinded in a car crash that killed his wife and several years later rediscovers his passion for life and writing when he embarks on an affair with the neglected wife of an indicted businessman.

In 1967, experimental filmmaker Jorgen Leth created a striking short film, The Perfect Human, starring a man and women sitting in a box while a narrator poses questions about their relationship and humanity. Years later, Danish director Lars von Trier made a deal with Leth to remake his film five times, each under a different set of circumstances and with von Trier's strictly prescribed rules. As Leth completes each challenge, von Trier creates increasingly further elaborate stipulations.

After a chance encounter with "The Master", Anne discovers bite marks on her neck, a new sense of power, and an appetite to live bigger and bolder than ever.

A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal Persons in a ritualised taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing truths about himself and premonitions.

Outside the Australian town of Jindabyne, local man Stuart Kane is on a fishing trip with friends when they discover the body of a murdered girl.

Juliette Hardy is sexual dynamite, and has the men of a French coastal town panting. But Antoine, the only man who affects her likewise, wouldn't dream of settling down with a woman his friends consider the town tramp.

On the beaches of Kenya they’re known as "Sugar Mamas" —European women who seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian and mother of a daughter entering puberty, travels to this vacation paradise, moving from beach to beach.

A young woman struggles to defend her Sámi heritage in a world where xenophobia is on the rise, climate change is threatening reindeer herding, and young people choose suicide in the face of collective desperation.

The true story of Ian McCormack who grew up surfing the waters of New Zealand. Wanting to dive deeper, Ian sets out on a journey with his best friend that will change his life as they chase the perfect wave.

A farmer's wife is seduced into running away from her stolid older husband by a city slicker, who enslaves her in a brothel.

Mathieu owes everything to his friend Vincent : his house, his job, and even his life, ten years ago. With their wives, they are an inseparable quartet, and live the easy life on the French Riviera. But Mathieu discovers Vincent is cheating on his wife.

A small town policeman must investigate a suspicious hunting accident. The investigation and other events result in him slowly disintegrating mentally.

Introverted Don Johnston receives an anonymous letter from an ex-lover informing him that he has a son who may be looking for him. A freelance sleuth neighbor motivates Don to embark on a cross-country search for his past flames seeking answers.

A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is just a computer simulation. Doubtful at first, Greg eventually discovers there may be some truth to Isabel’s wild conspiracy.

Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.

A childless couple struggle in the aftermath of a sexual assault leaves the woman pregnant.


