10 Best Dutch Movies to Watch First

10 Essential Dutch Films

Ranked native cinema in Netherlands’s own creative voice.

1. 

   1. Turkish Delight

   Turks Fruit · 1973

   A brash, gifted young sculptor in Amsterdam looks back on his passionate, stormy love affair with a beautiful free spirit, a relationship as tender as it is destructive. Paul Verhoeven's raw, explicit, deeply romantic early hit.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Paul Verhoeven’s breakthrough was named the best Dutch film of the twentieth century by the Netherlands Film Festival.

2. 

   2. Black Book

   Zwartboek · 2006

   In the last year of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, a Jewish singer who has lost everything joins the Dutch resistance and goes undercover, seducing a German officer — only to find betrayal lurking on every side. Paul Verhoeven's slick, twist-filled wartime thriller.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Verhoeven’s resistance thriller is one of the most acclaimed and widely embraced modern Dutch films.

3. 

   3. Soldier of Orange

   Soldaat van Oranje · 1977

   When the Germans invade the Netherlands, a group of carefree university friends is scattered onto very different paths — resistance, collaboration, escape, and death. Paul Verhoeven's sweeping wartime epic starring Rutger Hauer.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Verhoeven’s resistance epic remains a defining popular and historical work of Dutch cinema.

4. 

   4. The Vanishing

   Spoorloos · 1988

   When his girlfriend vanishes without a trace at a highway rest stop, a young man is consumed for years by the need to know what happened to her — an obsession the calm, methodical culprit is only too willing to satisfy. A chillingly clinical thriller.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: George Sluizer’s psychologically rigorous thriller is an international Dutch cult classic.

5. 

   5. The Northerners

   De Noorderlingen · 1992

   In a strange, half-built housing development in 1960s Netherlands, a gallery of eccentric neighbors pursue their thwarted desires — a butcher, a forester, a devout boy, a postman who steams open the mail. Alex van Warmerdam's deadpan absurdist comedy.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Alex van Warmerdam’s Golden Calf-winning satire belongs to the Canon of Dutch Cinema.

6. 

   6. The Assault

   De Aanslag · 1986

   As a boy, a Dutch man witnessed the Nazi reprisal that destroyed his family after the resistance killed a collaborator outside their home. Across the following decades, chance encounters slowly reveal the truth of that night. An Oscar-winning drama of memory and guilt.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Fons Rademakers’ Mulisch adaptation is a central Dutch reckoning with occupation and memory.

7. 

   7. Character

   Karakter · 1997

   In pre-war Rotterdam, the illegitimate son of a feared, coldhearted bailiff claws his way up from poverty to become a lawyer, locked in a lifelong duel with the father who seems determined to destroy him. An Oscar-winning drama of ambition and paternal cruelty.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Mike van Diem’s Rotterdam-set literary drama is an enduring modern Dutch period film.

8. 

   8. Antonia's Line

   Antonia · 1995

   Returning to her Dutch village after the war, a fiercely independent woman builds an unconventional, matriarchal community that flourishes across generations. Marleen Gorris's warm, feminist, Oscar-winning family saga.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Marleen Gorris’ multigenerational village chronicle is a major work of Dutch cinema.

9. 

   9. Borgman

   2013

   A mysterious, unsettling vagrant talks his way into the home of a wealthy, complacent family and, with his strange helpers, slowly and methodically dismantles their comfortable lives. Alex van Warmerdam's cryptic, sinister black comedy.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: Alex van Warmerdam’s unsettling social allegory is one of the strongest internationally recognized recent Dutch films.

10. 

    10. A Question of Silence

    De stilte rond Christine M. · 1982

    When three women who have never met kill a male shopkeeper together in broad daylight, the female psychiatrist assigned to assess their sanity comes to a disquieting understanding of their act. Marleen Gorris's provocative feminist drama.

    Why & details

    Curator’s note: Marleen Gorris’ confrontational debut is a lasting landmark of Dutch social cinema.