Breaking the Waves is currently streaming on Mubi

Breaking the Waves (1996)152 minDramaRating 73/100

A naive woman living in a remote Calvinist community on the Scottish coast, Bess (Emily Watson in an Academy Award® nominated performance) flaunts the will of the town's austere churchmen to marry Jan (Stellan Skarsgård, Good Will Hunting) a lusty Swede working in a nearby offshore oil rig. Her purity is put to the ultimate test when Jan is crippled in an accident and she agrees to continue their love-making vicariously through other men. Pilloried as a harlot, Bess is committed to the asylum but not before she seeks Jan's recovery through one final act of faith. Captured through Robby Mueller's (Paris, Texas) raw, relentless hand-held camera, this triumphant tale of tragedy, faith and redemption - the first in Lars Von Trier's "Golden Heart" trilogy on saintly heroines book-ended by Dancer in the Dark - is a cinematic tour de force.

Cast: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård, Katrin Cartlidge, Jean-Marc Barr, Adrian Rawlins, Jonathan Hackett, Sandra Voe

Director: Lars von Trier