Thomas Vinterberg's Another Round arrives as a 2020 Danish black comedy-drama that won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The film follows four Copenhagen high school teachers — Martin, Tommy, Peter, and Nikolaj — who feel their lives have grown stale and uninspired. At a birthday dinner, they discuss a theory by psychiatrist Finn Skårderud suggesting humans are born with a slight blood-alcohol deficiency and that maintaining a 0.05% level could boost creativity and confidence. What begins as a controlled experiment with strict rules — daytime only, never weekends, never driving — gradually seeps into their personal and professional lives in ways both revealing and risky.
Wikipedia describes the film as a 2020 black comedy-drama directed by Thomas Vinterberg and co-written with Tobias Lindholm, starring Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang, and Lars Ranthe. The premise is simple but the execution is layered: Vinterberg uses the alcohol experiment not as a gimmick but as a lens to examine midlife dissatisfaction, male friendship, and the search for meaning in routine. The film is dedicated to Vinterberg's daughter Ida, who died during production, lending it an undercurrent of grief that never feels exploited.
What makes Another Round resonate is its refusal to judge its characters. The teachers' experiment yields genuine improvements — Martin reconnects with his students and his wife, Nikolaj finds confidence — but the film never pretends the solution is sustainable. The cinematography by Sturla Brandth Grøvlen stays close to the actors, capturing the small gestures that define long friendships. Mikkelsen's performance anchors the film, moving from quiet despair to a final scene of unexpected physical grace that feels earned rather than performative.
For viewers who appreciate character-driven European cinema, Another Round offers a thoughtful, warm, and occasionally very funny portrait of men trying to feel alive again. It's a film that respects its audience's intelligence and leaves room for conversation afterward — exactly the kind of movie that rewards a second viewing with a different bottle of wine.