In May, when “Sentimental Value” premièred at Cannes, where it received the Grand Prix, one of the film’s stars, Elle Fanning, appeared at a press conference in a T-shirt that said “Joachim Trier Summer.” The previous month, the pop star Charli XCX—who’d coined the term “Brat Summer” to promote an album in 2024—had performed at Coachella, including Trier’s name in a strobing slide show listing artists deserving of their own summer. Trier told me that, in Norway, there had been many jokes about what a “Trier Summer” might mean. Though his films are formally playful and, at times, droll, they are also intimate explorations of difficult emotions. Among the recurrent themes are suicide, mysteriously intractable sorrow, and failed attempts at familial and romantic connection. Trier said, laughing, “A Norwegian newspaper was, like, ‘Joachim Trier Summer? What’s that? Being depressed? Being lonely at parties?’ ”journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter