The Hunt

Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt (Danish: Jagten) won the Best Actor prize at Cannes 2012 for Mads Mikkelsen's lead performance, the third major Cannes acting prize for a Danish-language performance after Bjork's win for Dancer in the Dark and Louise Mariager's nomination for Open Hearts. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards in 2014 and the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English Language the same year.

The screenplay is by Vinterberg with Tobias Lindholm, Lindholm would also write Vinterberg's Submarino and the later Another Round, the most successful collaboration in modern Danish cinema. The cast pairs Mikkelsen with Thomas Bo Larsen, Annika Wedderkopp (the child performer), Lasse Fogelstrøm and Susse Wold; Vinterberg has been outspoken about working closely with the seven-year-old Wedderkopp throughout the production with parents and child psychologists on set, and about deliberately not informing her of the full plot context.

The film was shot in Skanderborg in central Jutland over forty days and is set in a real Danish village. Cinematography is by Charlotte Bruus Christensen, who had also shot Vinterberg's Submarino; she would go on to shoot Far from the Madding Crowd, The Girl on the Train and A Quiet Place Part II. The film is now widely cited in academic discussions of moral panic in small communities and is regularly assigned in undergraduate ethics courses; it is also the project that re-established Mikkelsen as a major dramatic lead following his Bond-villain period.