Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve are staring down every parent’s nightmare in the first official trailer for Fjord, a tense new drama from acclaimed Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu (Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days). The performances look powerful, the subject matter looks primed to start arguments, and the film already has one very shiny endorsement: it won the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ top prize. Awards season could be hearing plenty more from this one. Watch the trailer above and get the details below.
A Family Under Investigation
Stan plays Mihai Gheorghiu, a devout Romanian father who moves with his Norwegian wife Lisbet (Reinsve) and their five children to a remote coastal village in Norway, hoping to start a new chapter closer to her family.
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They soon befriend their neighbours, the Halbergs, whose children quickly bond with their own. The adults don’t see eye to eye quite so easily, with the Gheorghius’ strict religious beliefs and approach to raising their children standing apart from the more liberal community around them.
Then their teenage daughter Elia (Vanessa Ceban) arrives at school with bruises.
Norway’s child protection system steps in, questions are raised about physical discipline inside the home, and what begins as concern becomes a full investigation into whether Mihai and Lisbet should be raising their children at all.
The trailer grows increasingly suffocating as interviews turn into accusations and the family finds itself fighting a system convinced it is protecting the children. Mihai, meanwhile, believes prejudice towards their religion and way of life is helping drive the case.
Sebastian Stan Goes Through Another Transformation
Fjord reunites Stan and Reinsve after 2024’s A Different Man, with both getting some seriously meaty material to work with. For Stan, it’s another sizeable physical transformation following A Different Man and The Apprentice. Mihai is balding, bespectacled, sporting wonky teeth and deliberately far removed from the actor’s usual movie-star appearance.
Mungiu told Deadline that he initially worried Stan was “too good-looking, somehow” for the part. Stan embraced the transformation, including shaving his head, with Mungiu praising just how completely he disappeared into Mihai.
There’s a personal connection to the role as well. Stan was born in Romania and Fjord marks his first role acting in his native language. Stan admitted to some nerves over whether his Romanian was still strong enough, but Mungiu had no such concerns: “His acting in Romanian was impeccable, consistent, believable, precise, nuanced.” The director even joked that the Romanian film industry might try to steal him from Hollywood.
Reinsve looks equally strong as Lisbet. She’s not simply standing behind her husband as he battles the authorities; the trailer finds her caught between defending her family and confronting questions that become harder to ignore.
The supporting cast includes Lisa Carlehed, Ellen Dorrit Petersen, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Henrikke Lund-Olsen, Vanessa Ceban and Jonathan Ciprian Breazu.
Real Cases Influenced Fjord
Anyone familiar with Mungiu’s work probably won’t be surprised by the uncomfortable territory. The writer-director won his first Palme d’Or with acclaimed 2007 drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, later tackling similarly thorny moral and social questions in Beyond the Hills, Graduation and R.M.N..
Fjord, his first feature shot outside Romania, grew from real cases involving immigrant families and child welfare authorities across Nordic countries. Rather than dramatising one particular case, Mungiu researched several, speaking with families, lawyers, journalists, judges, NGOs and people working within the system.
What interested him was the clash between people who can all be convinced they’re acting morally, and the growing inability to engage with anyone whose values don’t match our own. As Mungiu put it in an interview with Cineuropa, “We are losing the ability to listen to people who think differently from us and to actively engage in dialogue.”
That conflict runs right through the trailer. The parents’ beliefs and disciplinary methods attract serious scrutiny, while the authorities wield enormous power over what happens to the family next.
Mungiu knows that questioning a progressive institution could see Fjord embraced by conservative groups, something he has encountered with political readings of his earlier films as well. But he rejects the idea that scrutinising one side automatically means endorsing the other.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he said: “Expressing doubts about our liberal society doesn’t mean for a second that I’m a defender of a conservative society. I trust progressive society more…”
A Palme d’Or Winner Heading Into Awards Season
Fjord already has plenty going for it heading towards awards season. Its Cannes victory made Mungiu only the 10th filmmaker to win the Palme d’Or twice, almost two decades after 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The film also collected the FIPRESCI Prize, François Chalais Prize and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury during its Cannes run.
Critics have responded strongly as well, with Fjord currently holding a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score from 50 reviews.
Stan and Reinsve also arrive with serious awards momentum. Stan earned an Oscar nomination for playing Donald Trump in The Apprentice, while Reinsve received her first Academy Award nomination for Sentimental Value.
Then there’s NEON, which has developed a pretty ridiculous relationship with the Palme d’Or. Fjord is the seventh consecutive Cannes winner handled by the company in the U.S., following Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall, Anora and It Was Just an Accident.
Nothing guarantees an Oscar run, of course. But a Palme d’Or, strong reviews, Mungiu behind the camera and two recently Oscar-nominated actors looking this fired up? Fjord has plenty going for it.
Release Date
Fjord opens in U.S. cinemas on October 9, 2026 and Australian cinemas on January 21, 2027.
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