--- title: "Ordet" year: 1955 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/ordet" fi1m_score: 86 critics_score: 81 critics_reviews: 9 published: "2026-09-16T12:47:21.056467+00:00" updated: "2026-09-16T12:47:21.544916+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Ordet (1955) Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer · 2h 05m · Drama **Fi1m score: 86** · Critics 81 from 9 reviews *In a sentence:* The camera glides, the people preach, and somehow we stop minding the sermons > *Ordet* is a deeply moving religious drama, provided we can settle into its slow, formal conversations. Carl Theodor Dreyer makes faces and rooms worth sustained attention, though the speeches sometimes test that patience. ## Synopsis Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg), Mikkel Borgen (Emil Hass Christensen) and Johannes Borgen (Preben Lerdorff Rye) approach Christian faith from different positions. Inger Borgen (Birgitte Federspiel) is among those whose needs and affections become entangled with these disagreements. In spare interiors, conversations turn on what people believe, what they expect from one another and how firmly they hold to religious teaching. Each attempt to be understood brings another difference into view. The people gathered here face the difficulty of attending to one another while remaining certain about what faith requires. ## Review *Ordet* asks us to spend a long time listening to people talk about faith, and makes that a more affecting experience than the prospect suggests. Carl Theodor Dreyer has made a fine, demanding drama whose slow pace is worth accepting, although the stiffness of some exchanges takes getting used to. The religious disagreements keep directing our attention back to the people doing the talking. We need not share their beliefs to recognise how much they need to be understood. Henrik Malberg as Morten Borgen, Emil Hass Christensen as Mikkel Borgen and Preben Lerdorff Rye as Johannes Borgen give the discussions different kinds of urgency. The performances make little concession to conversational ease, and anyone waiting for brisk, naturalistic exchanges will have a difficult start. That formality can be wearing, but it also makes each face unusually important. We begin looking for responses that the speeches cannot supply, and the film gives us time to look. Henning Bendtsen’s black-and-white cinematography is the strongest invitation to stay. The camera glides through the interiors without making its movement feel like relief from the talking; it gives us time to study how people occupy the same room. Erik Aaes’s production design keeps those rooms spare and tangible, so the religious language never quite carries us away from walls, furniture and bodies. The light gives the faces a solemnity that the dialogue sometimes presses too hard, but the images remain absorbing. Edith Schlüssel’s editing lets the long takes determine the pace, and the conversations are not hurried towards their next point. That gives the actors room, although it also leaves the more rigid exchanges exposed. Poul Schierbeck’s music has less hold on our attention than the voices, a balance that suits a film so dependent on listening. At 125 minutes, this is not a film we can recommend for an evening when concentration has already gone. We were moved by Birgitte Federspiel as Inger Borgen, whose warmth gives us someone to care about when the religious talk grows heavy. Her performance makes the concern for ordinary human feeling persuasive without making the surrounding formality disappear. Yet Inger Borgen deserves more room beyond what she brings to the other characters. Birgitte Federspiel makes her worth watching, but the writing does not always give her equivalent freedom. The screenplay, also by Carl Theodor Dreyer, is less sure when it lays out the competing positions. Some of the disagreements become too neat, as though a speaker has been assigned a belief and must make certain we have understood it. We become conscious of the speech instead of wondering what the person might do. That is where the theatrical manner becomes a limitation, and the pace gives us plenty of time to notice. Within religious drama, the film’s insistence on sustained attention distinguishes it: we cannot skim the speeches and expect the faces to do everything. It is demanding company, even when the warmth comes through. Set aside a quiet evening for it, and leave time afterwards before choosing anything else. *Fi1m score 86, published 16 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics respond strongly to Ordet, with eight of the nine reviews praising its treatment of faith and its emotional force. Praise centres on Dreyer’s controlled direction: gliding camera movements, long takes, black-and-white lighting and tangible interiors make the religious disputes absorbing. The reviews repeatedly connect that formal restraint to powerful feeling, finding room for human frailty within the film’s spiritual concerns. Several describe a hypnotic experience rather than an immediately inviting one. The main division concerns the deliberate pace and theatrical style: most find them compelling, but not everyone is persuaded. The Guardian admires the eerie atmosphere while finding the theatricality a limitation. The Times is the lone negative voice, acknowledging the film’s beauty and commitment but finding the pacing ponderous, the themes simplistic and the female characters reduced to plot devices. The spread is therefore wide, though the disagreement is concentrated in one sharply dissenting review. ### Reviews we read (9) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): The critic finds the film difficult to enter at first but ultimately inescapable and profoundly moving, praising its deliberate pacing, religious depth, and transcendent climax. He singles out the godlike camera movements and celestial black-and-white lighting. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ordet-1955) - **Sight and Sound** (90/100, inferred): The critic celebrates Ordet as one of cinema’s supreme spiritual achievements, praising its blend of fleshy human emotion and transcendent faith. The piece highlights Dreyer’s humanist approach to individual spirituality over rigid religiosity. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/ordet-carl-theodor-dreyer) - **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (90/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film's philosophical worldview and stripped-down aesthetic of still yet furious clarity that reveals transcendent essence. He singles out its radical Christianity and the miraculous preservation of existence through cinema. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/dvd-of-the-week-ordet) - **The New York Times** (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a visual sermon of scalding spiritual intensity that uncoils like a majestic snail and is hypnotic rather than entertaining. He singles out the rigid but powerful blend of speeches and faces along with the stained-glass-window-like photography. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1957/12/16/archives/screen-danish-drama-carl-dreyers-ordet-is-a-visual-sermon.html) - **Time Out**, Dave Calhoun (90/100, inferred): The review calls the film powerfully moving and mysterious, singling out its extraordinary final coup de cinéma as a bold, unforgettable climax that redefines the drama. It praises the austere yet spiritually resonant direction and technical mastery. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/ordet) - **The AV Club**, Keith Phipps (85/100, inferred): The critic describes Ordet as a work of great spiritual generosity that uses long takes and tangible interiors to explore characters' differing positions on faith. Its tragedy and concluding miracle become moving in ways that are impossible to foresee. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/ordet-1798195767) - **The Telegraph** (85/100, inferred): Ordet is a magnificently cinematic version of the play about the possibility of a modern miracle and revival of faith. Its hypnotic gliding takes crown Dreyer's pursuit of total rhythm, making the climactic resurrection scene a miracle of cinema. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/3595973/Tragic-poet-of-the-cinema.html) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (70/100, inferred): A gripping and eerie tragedy of the supernatural and an unmissable re-release, though it falls a millimetre short of Dreyer's best due to its theatrical style. The film benefits from an undercurrent of sexual tension and has a hypnotic stare. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/mar/08/ordet-film-review) - **The Times**, Wendy Ide (40/100, inferred): An acknowledged classic and one of the boldest films on faith and religious passion, but the ponderous pacing makes it a slog with simplistic themes and female characters as mere plot devices. Admired for its beauty and commitment but little to like. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/europe-travel/denmark/copenhagen/ordet-tg9phtplkrf) ## Details - **Director:** Carl Theodor Dreyer - **Director:** Carl Theodor Dreyer - **Screenplay:** Carl Theodor Dreyer - **Story:** Kaj Munk - **Cinematography:** Henning Bendtsen - **Editor:** Edith Schlüssel - **Music:** Poul Schierbeck - **Production design:** Erik Aaes - **Costume design:** N. Sandt Jensen - **Producer:** Carl Theodor Dreyer, Erik Nielsen, Tage Nielsen - **Cast:** Henrik Malberg as Morten Borgen (uncredited); Birgitte Federspiel as Inger Borgen (uncredited); Emil Hass Christensen as Mikkel Borgen (uncredited); Preben Lerdorff Rye as Johannes Borgen (uncredited); Cay Kristiansen as Anders Borgen (uncredited); Ejner Federspiel as Peter Petersen (uncredited); Gerda Nielsen as Anne Petersen (uncredited); Sylvia Eckhausen as Kirstin Petersen (uncredited) - **Runtime:** 2h 05m - **Release (the US):** 15 December 1957 - **Genres:** Drama ## Where to watch in the US Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check. Also available in: GB. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Bodil Award for Best Danish Film 1955: Bodil Award for Best Danish Film (won) - Venice Film Festival 1955: Golden Lion (won) ## If you liked this - *Winter Light* (1963): Another spare drama about faith, with even less comfort in its silences. - *Diary of a Country Priest* (1951): For another patient encounter with belief, loneliness and the awkwardness of being human. - *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: For quiet rooms, watchful faces and mysteries that adults cannot satisfactorily explain. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md) - *A Separation* (2011), Fi1m 93: Religious conviction meets domestic responsibility, with nobody allowed an easy moral victory. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/a-separation.md) - *The Straight Story* (1999), Fi1m 88: A slow journey whose plain speech makes its tenderness harder to resist. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-straight-story.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/ordet