General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Another Round

Another Round (Danish: Druk) is a 2020 Danish-Swedish comedy-drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg, in which four middle-aged high school teachers test the theory that a constant low level of alcohol in the blood improves their lives.¹ Vinterberg wrote the screenplay with his regular collaborator Tobias Lindholm, and Mads Mikkelsen stars as Martin, a once brilliant teacher who has become world-weary and withdrawn.² The film won the 2021 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.³

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Druk (Danish); released internationally as Another Round¹
Director and writers	Thomas Vinterberg; screenplay by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm¹
Cast	Mads Mikkelsen (Martin), Thomas Bo Larsen (Tommy), Lars Ranthe (Peter), Magnus Millang (Nicolaj), Maria Bonnevie (Anika)¹
Runtime and language	116 minutes, in Danish¹
Premise	Four teachers maintain a constant blood alcohol level to test Finn Skårderud's theory that humans are born with a 0.05% blood alcohol deficiency⁴
Major awards	Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (2021); nominated for Best Achievement in Directing³
Danish performance	800,000 admissions locally plus over 73,000 digital copies sold; Vinterberg's greatest cinema success to date⁵

Spoilers

Premise and story

The film follows four friends, all teachers in middle age and stuck in a rut, who embark on an experiment drawn from the Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, who asserted that human beings are born with a blood alcohol level 0.05% too low and would be better off slightly drunk.⁴ The group sets rules for the experiment: drinking in the morning is encouraged, everyone stops at eight in the evening, the regimen favored by Ernest Hemingway, and no one drinks to the point of being knee-walking drunk, at least at first.⁶

At first the results are encouraging: Martin becomes a looser, livelier teacher, and the men find renewed energy in their work and homes.⁶ As the group escalates the experiment, long-simmering problems come to a head, and the men face a choice between reckoning with their behavior and continuing on the same course.² Vinterberg's stated aim was a dual one: to salute alcohol's ability to set people free while acknowledging that people die from, and are destroyed by, excessive drinking.⁷ The director described the film's approach as humorous and, in some eyes, scandalous toward a serious topic.⁷

Production

Vinterberg, a co-founder of the Dogme 95 movement, worked again with Mikkelsen after The Hunt (2012), which had won Mikkelsen the Best Actor prize at Cannes.⁶^•⁷ Vinterberg writes his scripts for specific actors: the four leads carried their own real names in the script until three weeks before shooting.⁷ Mikkelsen, a former professional dancer, performed the film's celebrated closing dance himself, with no dance doubles; the director had always planned for one character to die and one to fly, ending the film in a kind of ecstasy without a moral verdict.⁷

The entire film was shot hand-held by Norwegian cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, who had won a Silver Bear for his work on Victoria (2015).⁷^•⁸ The camera was directed to follow the alcohol curve, swaying and swaggering drunkenly as the characters drink and turning gray and noisome when they are sober.⁷

The film was produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen and Kasper Dissing for Zentropa, in co-production with Film i Väst, Zentropa Sweden, Topkapi Films, and Zentropa Netherlands, with support from the Danish Film Institute, TV 2 Denmark, Eurimages, and the MEDIA Programme of the European Union.⁵

Release and reception

Druk premiered in Denmark on 24 September 2020, followed by releases in Estonia, France, Norway, and other European territories through 2021.⁹ Samuel Goldwyn Films gave it a US theatrical release on 4 December 2020 and a VOD release on 18 December 2020.² Despite pandemic-era restrictions, the film sold 800,000 admissions in Denmark and became the best-selling film digitally in that country.⁵

Awards. At the 93rd Academy Awards the film won Best International Feature Film as Denmark's submission and was nominated for Best Achievement in Directing.³^•⁴ It won four European Film Awards for 2020, for Best Film, Direction, Actor (Mikkelsen), and Screenplay.¹⁰ At the Danish Film Awards 2021 it took five Roberts (Robert Awards, Denmark's film prizes), including Best Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Male Lead, and Best Editor.⁵ It also won the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language, the Goya for Best European Film, and the Amanda Award for Best Foreign Feature Film.³^•¹¹

Critical reception was broadly positive but not uniform. Reviewers praised Mikkelsen's performance and the film's balance of comedy and melancholy; Screen Daily called it a funny film that is also desperately sad, while Variety found the concept underdeveloped.¹² The Time review of March 2021, published ahead of the Oscars, argued that the film's chief focus is the mild tragedy of middle-aged invisibility rather than alcoholism, and questioned why the movie exists despite Mikkelsen's acting.⁶ The film has an IMDb rating of 7.7 from about 231,000 votes and a Rotten Tomatoes score of 93 percent.¹³

English-language remake

An American remake has been in development. In January 2024 it was reported that the English-language remake was lined up with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Davisson attached as producers through DiCaprio's production company.¹⁴ The Danish trade press reported that the comedian and actor Chris Rock had been announced as director, prompting concern among some about the project.¹⁵

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2020 to 2022

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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