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Joachim Trier () (born 1 March 1974) is a Danish-born Norwegian filmmaker. His films have been described as "Melancholia meditations concerned with existential questions of love, ambition, memory, and identity." He has received numerous accolades, including the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and two Cesar Awards.
He is best known for his Oslo trilogy which comprises the films Reprise (2006), Oslo, August 31st (2011), and The Worst Person in the World (2021). For the last film, he was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards, with the film also nominated for Best International Feature. He is also known for directing Louder Than Bombs (2015), Thelma (2017), and the documentary The Other Munch (2018).
As a teenager, Trier was a skateboarding champion who shot and produced his own skateboarding videos. He studied at the European Film College in Ebeltoft and at the National Film & Television School in the United Kingdom.
Trier's debut film, Reprise, is about two aspiring writers and their volatile relationship. Released by Miramax in 2006, it received Norway's top film awards, the Amanda Award and the Aamot Statuette. Internationally, it won prizes at film festivals in Toronto, Istanbul, Rotterdam, Milan, and Karlovy Vary. Trier was named one of Variety's "10 Directors to Watch" in 2007.
Trier was named as one of the jury members for the "Cinéfondation" and short-film sections of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. In 2015, Trier directed the English-language film Louder Than Bombs, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Gabriel Byrne, and Isabelle Huppert. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where it received positive reviews with acclaim for its leading performance from Huppert. His fourth feature, the supernatural Horror film-Romance film Thelma, screened at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival to positive reviews. Andrew Barber of Variety praised the film describing it as an, "unnervingly effective slow-burn, and those with the patience for Trier’s patient accumulation of detail will find it pays off in unexpected ways." It was selected as the Norwegian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards, held in 2018.
In 2018, he co-directed, with his brother, Emil, a 55-minute documentary, The Other Munch, featuring the writer Karl Ove Knausgård curating, with Kari Brandtzæg, To the Forest, an exhibition of paintings by Edvard Munch at Oslo's Munch Museum. Trier and Knausgård visit locations from Munch's life, discuss his works, themes, obsessions, and process. The Trier brothers connect Knausgård's unorthodox interpretation of Munch to Knausgård's literary works, (2025). 9781473555464 ISBN 9781473555464 in a portrait of both artists. Karl Ove Knausgård stated "When I was invited to curate the exhibition, I proposed that we make a film to coincide with it." Also in 2018, Trier served as the Jury President of the Critics' Week section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
In June 2018, Trier was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
On July 7, 2021, The Worst Person in the World premiered to high acclaim competing for the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, where star Renate Reinsve won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress. Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter praised Trier's ability as a director writing "More than ever, Trier reveals how well he can keep shifting tones and emotional arcs without losing any narrative momentum." The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and Trier himself earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards.
In 2023 it was announced that Trier would reunite with actor Renate Reinsve for his next film, Sentimental Value, a family drama that subsequently began filming in Norway. The film was screened at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. The film, a family drama, revolves around the fractured relationship between two daughters and their father, a filmmaker on the rebound. The film stars Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning. Pete Hammond of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "This may be the closest Trier has gotten to the master of this kind of human conflict, Ingmar Bergman, whose films would seem to be an influence, or at the very least an inspiration". The film will be distributed by Neon and will have a November release date in the United States.
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