Film

The Commune

Name: The Commune
Genre: Drama
Released: 2016
Cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Trine Dyrholm, Helene Reingaard Neumann, Lars Ranthe, Julie Agnete Vang

Drama

The Commune is a warm, wry Danish drama about idealism colliding with reality. When a couple inherits a grand house, they invite friends to live communally in 1970s Copenhagen, attempting to shed bourgeois convention and live by collective principles. It's tender and funny, never mocking its characters' earnest utopianism, yet unflinching about how messy communal living becomes when people are still people.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy ensemble comedies about idealism colliding with ordinary jealousy, where the laughs and the sting arrive in the same scene and the characters are allowed to be both foolish and right.

Skip it if you want a brisk plot or a light, breezy comedy, since this one lingers on its people's unease and moves at a deliberate, talky pace throughout.

What it asks of you: A roughly two-hour sitting in which the mood keeps shifting between warm and wounded, asking you to stay with several people at once rather than follow a single line.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Lilith1964

Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg in a delicate, ambiguous study of freedom, desire and mental illness. Hypnotic cinematography and a refusal to judge its characters make this a spiritual cousin to The Commune's moral complexity.

But It moves slowly and the ending offers no catharsis, which frustrated audiences then and may frustrate them now.

A Bigger Splash2015

Luca Guadagnino's fever dream of desire and ego disrupting an island paradise. Like The Commune, it's about sophisticated people discovering their ideals are no match for human nature and attraction.

But It's deliberately abrasive, sexually charged, and tense in ways that might feel oppressive rather than cathartic.

The Celebration1998

Thomas Vinterberg's Danish masterpiece about family secrets detonating at a dinner party. Same era's artistic sensibility, same unflinching look at how badly intimacy can go wrong among people who think they know each other.

But It's darker and more brutal than The Commune—this isn't gentle about its revelations.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Commune

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Stalker1979

Both trust that philosophical and emotional truth emerges through patience and observation rather than plot; both understand that collective endeavor is always shadowed by individual longing.

Tarkovsky's three-hour Russian meditation on desire, belief, and the impossibility of utopia. A group journeys together through a mysterious zone seeking enlightenment—a commune in motion. It shares The Commune's quiet sense that our ideals are beautiful precisely because they can never be fully realized.

But At 163 minutes, it moves at its own tempo; if you need forward momentum or external incident, you will find this maddening.

Last Tango in Paris1972

Bertolucci's portrait of two people using passion to escape themselves, set in 1970s Europe. It captures the same era's hunger for emotional authenticity and the same tragic gap between intention and outcome.

But The sexual content is graphic and the relationship is fundamentally exploitative, which overshadows the psychological insight for some viewers.

Mamma Mia!2008

A joyful ensemble piece about chosen family and letting go of control. Where The Commune gets wistful and complicated, this is pure celebration—but both understand that people matter more than ideology.

But It's aggressively cheerful ABBA karaoke, which is either irresistible or completely unbearable.

Minari2021

A gentle, observant film about a family attempting to build a new life on their own terms. Like The Commune, it's about idealism meeting the actual difficulty of living differently and the tenderness between people trying.

But The conflict is quiet and internal rather than dramatic—if you want confrontation, you won't find enough here.

Blue Velvet1986

Lynch's nightmare beneath suburban surfaces. Both films understand that desire and chaos lurk beneath even the most carefully constructed communal spaces, and both render this with dark humor.

But It's surreal, violent, and disturbing in ways The Commune deliberately avoids—the registers are very different.

A Ghost Story2017

A meditation on how we leave traces in the places we inhabit and the impossible desire to hold onto moments. Shares The Commune's elegiac sense that nothing lasts, even when we try to make it permanent.

But It's slow, abstract, and deliberately elliptical—demands patience and willingness to sit with ambiguity.

Moonlight2016

Barry Jenkins' portrait of chosen family and the selves we perform for others. Like The Commune, it understands intimacy with profound gentleness and sees how community forms around vulnerability rather than ideology.

But It's meditative and imagistic; if you prefer plot-driven narrative, the pacing will feel glacial.

Shoplifters2018

Both films examine makeshift communities built on non-traditional bonds and shared experience rather than conventional structures, finding beauty and loyalty in arrangements society deems wrong.

Hirokazu Koreeda's portrait of a 'family' held together by theft and affection rather than blood or law. Like The Commune, it asks what makes a family real and whether shared values matter more than shared DNA. It's warm and melancholy at once.

But The film's sympathetic treatment of petty crime and casual deception troubles some viewers; it refuses moral judgment that others feel it should make.