Classic Movies Live Season 7, Episode 11 – The Celebration
April 29, 2026
In last weeks’ episode of Classic Movies Live!, our hosts talked about The Drama, and hinted at another movie it possibly drew inspiration from. This week, it’s time to talk about that movie!
The Celebration is the first film in the Dogme 95 movement, an artistic exercise by a group of filmmakers led by Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg pushing back against what they saw as the excesses of 90s filmmaking. Wouldn’t you know it, for Dogme’s 30 anniversary, Dogme 25, pushing back against the excesses of 2020s filmmaking, was announced at last year’s Cannes Film Festival! (Stay tuned for more!)
The Celebration stars Henning Moritzen as the patriarch of a wealthy family celebrating his 60th birthday. But in bringing together all his children for the first time in several years, he accidentally invites conflicts which threaten to tear his family apart.
The Celebration is one of the most highly-regarded Dogme 95 films (indeed one of very few to be met with positive critical success), and would go on to be submitted to the 71st Academy Awards as Denmark’s International Feature submission (but was not nominated). It’s also one of Vinterberg’s best-known movies, aside from the most recent Another Round (which he ended up finally winning an Oscar for).
In this episode, our hosts discuss The Celebration and Dogme filmmaking! Does this have anything to do with last week’s episode on The Drama? You’ll have to tune in to find out!
