Adam's Apples

"When it rains, it pours"

2005 1h 35m DA

🙌

7.5

BANGER

🍅

70%

FRESH

😬

METACRITIC

⭐

7.7

IMDB

★7.5TMDB · 828🍅70%Rotten Tomatoes●51Metacritic★7.7IMDB · 58,666

DramaComedyCrime

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

A neo-nazi sentenced to community service at a church clashes with the blindly devotional priest.

“When it rains, it pours”

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Cast

Mads Mikkelsen
Ivan
Ulrich Thomsen
Adam
Paprika Steen
Sarah
Ole Thestrup
Dr. Kolberg
Nikolaj Lie Kaas
Holger
Nicolas Bro
Gunnar
Ali Kazim
Khalid
Gyrd Løfquist
Poul

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Anders Thomas Jensen
Writers: Anders Thomas Jensen, Rikke Deepthi Hansen
Languages: Danish
Countries: Denmark, Germany

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $3.7M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 21 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: Denmark, Germany.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, shot by Sebastian Blenkov. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Jeppe Kaas. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Anders Villadsen shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Mads Mikkelsen and Ulrich Thomsen and Paprika Steen carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "When it rains, it pours".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Anders Thomas Jensen directs. Sebastian Blenkov behind the camera. Jeppe Kaas scores. Anders Villadsen cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in Denmark, Germany. Dialogue in Danish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $3.7M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Released 21 years ago.
3International production across 2 countries: Denmark, Germany.
4Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen, shot by Sebastian Blenkov. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Jeppe Kaas. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Anders Villadsen shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Mads Mikkelsen and Ulrich Thomsen and Paprika Steen carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "When it rains, it pours".
9IMDB entry: tt0418455 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 15 themes, including "neo-nazism", "faith", "cynic", "suppressed past".

The technical file

Cinematography: Sebastian Blenkov
Original score: Jeppe Kaas
Editing: Anders Villadsen
Production design: Mia Stensgaard
Makeup / hair: Louise Hauberg
Sound: Nino Jacobsen
Stunt coordinator: Stig Günther
Runtime: 95 min · 1h 35m
Status: Released
Budget: $3,700,000
Original language: DA
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Adam's Apples (2005)
Rotten Tomatoes: 70% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 51/100
IMDB rating: 7.7/10 · 58,666 votes
MPAA: R
US box office: $1,305

Awards

20 wins & 13 nominations total

Robert Award for Best Visual Effects
Robert Award for Best Danish Film
Robert Award for Best Screenplay

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Anders Thomas Jensen

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

Andres Gomez2012-10-28
★ 8/10
Good Danish black humor.
tmdb280390232022-08-27
★ 6/10
Adam's Apples is simultaneously a deconstruction and a satire of the Book of Job; the former because it recognizes and highlights the underlying black humor in the biblical text, and the latter because it rightly points out that more than Job’s patience, we should talk about his madness. Danish priest Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen) is both jobian and quixotic (the costume department deserves a pat on the back for making him look, in his priestly garb, like the subject, thought to be Cervantes, of a portrait attributed to Juan de Jáuregui), his insanity the only thing that makes his crappy life bearable. In a stroke of genius, the film explains Ivan’s pollyannish disposition with the pythonesque “Ravashi Syndrome” (“Ravashi was an Indian footballer who lost both feet in a go-karting accident in 1957. In shock from the accident he ran home on the stumps of his legs. His brain blocked out the fact that he had no feet. For two months he went to practice. He kept his midfield position”; “With no feet?”; “It was a bad team. They were in the fifth division or something like that”). Mikkelsen is pitch-perfect as the clueless Ivan, deadpanning his way through outlandish dialogue and somehow making it sound earnest (in one the film’s funniest moments, he tells the titular Adam – a neo-nazi sent to Ivan’s rehabilitation program for parolees –, in reference to a picture of Hitler: “handsome man. Is he your father?”). Ulrich Thomsen is also very effective as the perplexed and ambivalent Adam, of whom Ivan brings out the best and the worst – for example, taking Ivan to the hospital every time Adam beats the crap out of him. In general, Ivan takes more physical punishment than any normal human being could survive, but then we’re not meant to take the movie literally (making it easier to laugh at the character’s sundry hardships and tribulations). Like the biblical book from which it draws inspiration, Adam’s Apples is a parable, though not of the ‘in God we trust’ variety. It'd be tempting to dismiss Ivan as a victim of fanaticism if the filmmakers didn't offset him with the equally fanatical Adam. It’s clear that Ivan's pathological faith is not the answer to life’s problems, but the solution does not lie in Adam’s misanthropic nihilism either. The ideal is to find common ground, which Ivan and Adam do when they visit and comfort a dying old man haunted by the memory of his days as a guard in a concentration camp.
r96sk2023-08-06
★ 8/10
What a strange film... a very good one, mind you. The cast do great work in this 2005 release. Mads Mikkelsen being the obvious standout - top performance! Ulrich Thomsen doesn't really do all that much necessarily, yet still manages to make a big impact with his showing - amusing, by the way, how much hair can change the way you see someone, that ending is quite the mild cranium contort*! I'm not really all that sold on what the film attempts to tell, but I can't deny that I had a pleasant time watching it all unfold. I wouldn't actually say it features that strong humour, perhaps some of it was lost in translation (Viaplay's subs were iffy in patches), but all that's there is enough. There is one joke at the death that is probably one of the most insulting, hitting both racist and ableist, that I've ever heard - black comedy, I know, I know. Aside from all that, final notes: sound and cinematography - super atmospheric in parts. Would I recommend 2005's <em>'Adam’s Apples'</em>? Ja. <em>*did i find that phrase on google for a more polite way of saying mindf#k - maybe</em>