film. Here we encoded the film, and the audience has to decode it. The raw, documentary style that I imposed on the film, which actually dissolves and contradicts it, means that we can accept the story as it is". Reception Critical response The film garnered an 85% approval rating, and an average rating of 8.24/10 on Rotten Tomatoes from 59 reviews. The critical consensus reads, "Breaking the Waves offers a remarkable testament to writer-director Lars von Trier's insight and filmmaking skill -- and announces Emily Watson as a startling talent". It also holds a 79/100 rating on Metacritic based on 28 reviews, citing a "generally favorable" reception. During a show where film personalities listed their top movies of the 1990s, Breaking the Waves was named one of the ten best films of the decade by both critic Roger Ebert and director Martin Scorsese. In an essay for the Criterion Collection, David Sterritt interpreted it as a film in which "no one is 'bad', everyone is 'good', and when trouble flares anyway, it's because incompatible concepts of 'good' can violently conflict with one another"; he praised the ending as "a magical vision that elevates the final moments to radically metaphysical heights". Box office The film grossed over $23 million worldwide including $4.6 million in France; $4 million in the US and Canada; $1.7 million in Italy; and $1.1 million in the UK. Accolades Operatic adaptation Composer Missy Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek premiered their operatic adaptation of the film on 22 September 2016, at Opera Philadelphia. The work was called "the most startling and moving new American opera in memory" by parterre box, with Opera News proclaiming that it "stands among the best twenty-first-century American operas yet produced". Home media The Criterion Collection initially released the film in the United States in 1997 on LaserDisc in a director's approved 2-disc edition and featured four deleted scenes selected by Lars von Trier, the complete European director's cut, a promo clip prepared by Lars von Trier for the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and the U.S. theatrical trailer. On 27 January 1998, the film was made available on VHS format courtesy of Artisan Entertainment in an edited cut, while a subsequent DVD release was made available from Artisan on 25 July 2000, in a non-anamorphic edition and lacking the special features which appeared on Criterion's LaserDisc edition. Criterion again reacquired home distribution rights to