# The 28 Best Danish Films of All Time

> Austere black-and-white classics meet Dogme provocations, Oscar winners and cult comedies Danes still quote at dinner parties. Small country, outsized filmography.

*By YPB Team · Published November 1, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/the-28-best-danish-films-of-all-time*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **The Hunt** — score 1000/1000
   Vinterberg's 2012 drama with Mads Mikkelsen as a teacher whose life is destroyed by a false accusation.
2. **Italian for Beginners** — score 733/1000
   Lone Scherfig's 1999 Dogme comedy about lonely people finding each other in an evening Italian class.
3. **Ordet** — score 732/1000
   Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1955 drama of faith and doubt on a Jutland farm, winner of the Golden Lion in Venice.
4. **Pelle the Conqueror** — score 732/1000
   Bille August's 1987 drama of a Swedish boy and his father as farm labourers, winner of the Palme d'Or and an Oscar.
5. **Gertrud** — score 639/1000
   Dreyer's austere 1964 final film about a woman who refuses to compromise in love.
6. **Festen** — score 639/1000
   Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 Dogme 95 debut, in which a birthday dinner speech exposes a family's secrets.
7. **Land of Mine** — score 639/1000
   Martin Zandvliet's 2015 drama about German teenage POWs forced to clear mines from Danish beaches.
8. **The Guilty** — score 523/1000
   Gustav Moller's 2018 single-location thriller played entirely from an emergency dispatcher's desk.
9. **Another Round** — score 523/1000
   Vinterberg's 2020 Oscar winner about four teachers testing a theory on constant low-level drinking.
10. **In a Better World** — score 523/1000
   Susanne Bier's 2010 drama about two boys and revenge, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
11. **After the Wedding** — score 523/1000
   Bier's Oscar-nominated 2006 drama in which an aid worker returns from India and learns a family secret.
12. **A Royal Affair** — score 523/1000
   Nikolaj Arcel's 2012 period drama about Queen Caroline Mathilde and the royal physician Struensee.
13. **Nightwatch** — score 523/1000
   Ole Bornedal's 1994 thriller about a law student working nights in a morgue during a killing spree.
14. **The Olsen Gang in Jutland** — score 523/1000
   The 1971 Olsen-banden comedy that takes Egon Olsen's hapless crew out of Copenhagen and into rural Jutland, an early hit of Denmark's best-loved film series.
15. **Day of Wrath** — score 0/1000
   Dreyer's 1943 witch-hunt drama about a pastor's young wife in 17th-century Denmark, made under the German occupation.
16. **Breaking the Waves** — score 0/1000
   Lars von Trier's 1996 Grand Prix winner, with Emily Watson as a devout woman on Scotland's coast.
17. **Babette's Feast** — score 0/1000
   Gabriel Axel's 1987 tale of a French cook's lavish dinner for a pious Jutland village, Denmark's first Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
18. **Dancer in the Dark** — score 0/1000
   Von Trier's 2000 musical tragedy starring Bjork, winner of the Palme d'Or.
19. **The Idiots** — score 0/1000
   Von Trier's provocative 1998 Dogme 95 film about a commune whose members pretend to be mentally disabled.
20. **Dogville** — score 0/1000
   Von Trier's 2003 chalk-outline parable with Nicole Kidman as a fugitive in a small Rocky Mountain town.
21. **Melancholia** — score 0/1000
   Von Trier's 2011 apocalyptic drama about two sisters as a rogue planet approaches Earth.
22. **Pusher** — score 0/1000
   Nicolas Winding Refn's raw 1996 debut, following a Copenhagen drug dealer through one disastrous week.
23. **Flickering Lights** — score 0/1000
   Anders Thomas Jensen's 1999 cult crime comedy about four gangsters who hide out in a rural restaurant.
24. **Adam's Apples** — score 0/1000
   Jensen's 2005 pitch-black comedy of a neo-Nazi paroled to a church run by an unstoppably optimistic priest.
25. **Flee** — score 0/1000
   Jonas Poher Rasmussen's 2021 animated documentary about an Afghan refugee's secret past, nominated for three Oscars.
26. **Twist and Shout** — score 0/1000
   Bille August's 1984 coming-of-age drama about two teenage friends in 1960s Denmark.
27. **Flame & Citron** — score 0/1000
   Ole Christian Madsen's 2008 thriller about two real Danish resistance assassins during the occupation.
28. **Open Hearts** — score 0/1000
   Bier's 2002 Dogme drama of a couple torn apart by an accident, starring Mads Mikkelsen.

Tags: movies, classics, denmark, scandinavia