International recognition: Sentimental Value
Sentimental Value has been nominated for 9 Academy Awards®, marking a landmark moment for Norwegian cinema. Selected as Norway’s official submission by the Norwegian Oscar Committee, the film went on to receive nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences including Best Picture, alongside key performance and craft categories.
This level of global visibility places renewed focus not only on the body of Trier’s work, but on Oslo itself as a city capable of supporting high-end filmmaking with global appeal — delivered through efficient production models and competitive Scandinavian cost structures.
A new chapter: Sentimental Value
In Sentimental Value, Oslo emerges as an architectural and emotional presence. The film draws on locations that feel lived-in, culturally anchored, and emotionally resonant — spaces where private lives intersect with public history. The city’s restrained visual language allows character and performance to remain central, while still offering a distinct Nordic identity.
This approach reflects a broader strength of Oslo as a filming location: visual clarity combined with narrative restraint. The city offers specificity without distraction, enabling filmmakers to foreground story, character, and mood.
The following locations illustrate how Oslo functions on screen across Sentimental Value and Trier’s earlier Oslo-based films — Reprise (2006), Oslo, August 31st (2011), The Worst Person in the World (2021).
Click here to see VisitOslo's The Worst Person in the World guide map.
Thomas Heftyes gate – Neighbourhoods shaped by time
Set in the Frogner district, the house in Sentimental Value (2025) is framed within one of Oslo’s most established neighbourhoods — characterised by leafy streets, heritage architecture, and a concentration of cultural venues and hospitality. For screen storytelling, Frogner offers a refined, recognisable Oslo look with a sense of continuity and place. In the film, the house is more than a setting. It anchors the narrative as a space shaped by time: we encounter it across seasons and through different lives, allowing the location itself to hold memory and change. The result is a rare kind of screen address — a home that functions as a character in its own right, carrying the emotional weight of the story from scene to scene.
National Theatre – Cultural architecture at Oslo’s core
In Sentimental Value (2025), the National Theatre sits at the heart of Oslo’s civic and cultural corridor — a location that naturally frames performance, visibility, and pressure. It is here that Nora (Renate Reinsve) is shown at work, and where the story brings us close to a moment of vulnerability just before she goes on stage. Nationaltheatret offers more than an iconic façade. Its position on Karl Johans gate places it within a highly recognisable urban context, surrounded by key institutions and formal city geometry — an immediate sense of Oslo on screen. Paired with richly detailed interiors, the theatre provides a setting that can carry both grandeur and intimacy, making it well suited to character-led drama.
Ekebergrestauranten – Oslo seen from above
In The Worst Person in the World (2021), Ekebergrestauranten features during Aksel’s book launch — a scene that places Julie against one of Oslo’s most expansive viewpoints. The location does more than provide a striking backdrop: it creates distance and perspective, giving the city a role in the moment as Julie takes in Oslo from above. Perched on the Ekeberg hillside, the area combines architecture, landscape, and cultural context in a single setting. With Ekebergparken’s sculpture park nearby, it offers a rare mix of art, nature, and history — alongside clear sightlines across the city and out towards the fjord. Ekeberg is a high-value location that delivers scale and atmosphere quickly, while keeping Oslo’s character firmly in frame.
Julie's running sequence – The versatility of Oslo
In The Worst Person in the World (2021), Julie’s running sequence turns Oslo into a story engine. As she moves through the city, the backdrop shifts from quieter, residential streets with a more traditional feel, like Uranienborg district, to the clean lines and glass façades of Bjørvika and Barcode, Oslo’s newer districts. The transition is subtle but powerful: it captures how quickly Oslo can change mood — and how effectively the city can signal a change in character, pace, or emotional temperature without ever leaving the urban core.
Frognerparken – Scale and Openness in Central Oslo
In Reprise (2006), Frognerparken appears as a place for pause and reflection — a public space where the city quietens enough for a character to think. In one scene, Erik sits on a bench near the Monolith, using the park’s sculptural landscape as a backdrop for a moment of stillness. Best known for the Vigeland installation and associated museum, Frognerparken also includes Frognerbadet — later featured in Oslo, August 31st — as well as Frogner Stadion. It offers a distinctive and immediately recognisable Oslo setting: monumental artwork, generous green space, and clear sightlines that can support both intimate scenes and wider crowd moments.
Huk, Bygdøy – Where the city meets the water
In Reprise (2006), Huk appears in a seaside moment, with the characters gathered by the pier — a reminder that Oslo’s coastline is never far from the city’s cultural core. The location brings a different tempo to the film: open water, wider horizons, and the feeling of escape without leaving Oslo. Huk sits on the Bygdøy peninsula, a forested stretch of shoreline known for royal estates, major museums, beaches, and walking trails. Bygdøy offers a rare combination of nature and cultural context within minutes of the city centre — making it well suited to scenes that need coastal atmosphere, greenery, or a sense of space, while remaining logistically close to urban bases and crew infrastructure.
Oslo's screen identity: contrast, proximity and control
Oslo’s cinematic identity is defined by contrast. Elegant residential streets in neighbourhoods such as Frogner sit minutes from contemporary waterfront developments in Bjørvika and the Barcode district. Monumental public spaces like Vigelandsparken coexist with intimate neighbourhood greens and compact urban parks.
For filmmakers, these contrasts are not only visually compelling—they are narratively and logistically effective. Oslo allows productions to move seamlessly between intimacy and scale, heritage and modernity, openness and enclosure, often within the same shooting day. Calm public spaces, clear sightlines, and a measured urban rhythm support character-led storytelling while remaining adaptable to larger crew requirements.
Oslo as a film city: practicalities that support storytelling
For international producers, Oslo’s value isn’t limited to visuals. Beyond its aesthetic qualities, Oslo offers practical advantages that matter to international productions. The city is compact, accessible, and designed for movement. Distinct neighbourhoods and architectural styles are easily reachable, supported by efficient public transport, and walkable streets.
Oslo also offers a rare combination of urban diversity and immediate access to nature. Lakes, forests, fjords, and coastal landscapes lie just beyond the city centre, expanding the range of locations available within short travel times.
International productions such as Tenet, No Time to Die and Netflix’s Detective Hole have filmed in and around Oslo, drawn by this combination of visual range, infrastructure, and production reliability.
The Oslo Film Commission provides production guidance, while Viken Film Centre and Oslo Film Fund offer financing and investment opportunities. With an international airport, studios, post-production facilities, experienced crews, and a strong hospitality sector, Oslo is a flexible ready base for both urban and nature-based productions.
“Logistically, in Oslo; productions can move swiftly between sole nature in forms of sea and forrest, to both historical grounds and high tech futuristic architecture. This makes it all the more flexible for company moves and challenges in shooting schedules.
In Oslo we do strive to be both flexible and creatively engaged in meeting different needs of production. Some of the most challenging scenes in Joachim Triers film "The Worst Person in The World", and in Roar Uthaugs «Troll» could not have made it to the screen had it not been for close and creative collaboration between public services and the production, with the directors vision in mind. Not to forget, shooting a dialogue scene outdoors on a rooftop situated in between two other prestigious public buildings, which were being built at the time."
– Adrian Mitchell, Oslo Film Commission
"In Oslo we do take pride in being flexible and pro-active.”
A city you don't just see — you feel
Through Joachim Trier’s films, Oslo is presented as a city that supports intimacy and realism. The locations function as active storytelling environments, shaping character, tone and narrative progression rather than serving as generic backdrops.
For filmmakers seeking a city that combines emotional authenticity with visual clarity, Oslo offers a strong and reliable model for storytelling through place —where the urban environment actively supports the creative intent of the production.
