Ranking All Of Director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Movies
“What are Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Best Movies?” We looked at all of Dreyer’s directed filmography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!
We took all of the movies directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer and looked at their Rotten Tomato Critic, Rotten Tomato User, IMDB, and Letterboxd scores, ranking them against one another to see which movies came out on top. The movies are ranked in our list below based on which movies have the highest overall score between all 6 review sites in comparison with all of the other movies by the same director. The process is all very scientific with no flaws at all.
The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.
Happy Viewing!
The Top Film’s Of Carl Theodor Dreyer
21 ) The Fight Against Cancer (1947)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 22
- Letterboxd User Score: 21
A Danish PSA urging people to see the doctor before it’s too late to cure their cancer.
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21 ) Good Mothers (1942)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 21
- Letterboxd User Score: 22
The Mothers’ Aid is a state-funded institution with branches all over Denmark. Erna, a young pregnant woman, has asked a doctor to carry out an abortion, but instead he advised her to go to the Mothers’ Aid for consultation.
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20 ) A Castle Within a Castle (1955)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 20
- Letterboxd User Score: 19
The castle of Krogen, built c. 1420, is inside the later castle of Kronborg. Reconstruction of Kronborg gave a chance to study early castles. Models of both are shown.
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19 ) Thorvaldsen (1949)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 19
- Letterboxd User Score: 19
Short about the famous Danish sculptor
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18 ) Storstrøm Bridge (1950)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 18
- Letterboxd User Score: 18
A wordless ode to the Storstrom bridge.
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16 ) The Village Church (1947)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 15
- Letterboxd User Score: 16
Short film by Carl Th. Dreyer
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16 ) Water from the Land (1946)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 15
- Letterboxd User Score: 16
Sharply critical film about rural water pollution in the Jutland countryside district of medical officer Jens Jensen. Situations of everyday water use are illustrated by graphic representations of a well and surrounding soil layers. A new well is correctly constructed in the farmyard.
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15 ) The President (1920)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 15
- Letterboxd User Score: 11
The judge in a Danish town sees his illegitimate daughter facing a trial for the murder of her newborn child
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14 ) Once Upon a Time (1922)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 14
- Letterboxd User Score: 11
Based on the play by Holger Drachmann.
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13 ) Love One Another (1922)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 12
- Letterboxd User Score: 11
Based on the novel by Aage Madelung, this film about anti-semitism in 1905 Russia is extremely rare (only 4 prints survive in archives).
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12 ) The Bride of Glomdal (1926)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 10
- Letterboxd User Score: 11
Tore takes over the rundown family farm. Applying his youthful energy, he intends to make it into a big farm like Glomgården on the other side of the river, where beautiful Berit loves. Tore falls in love with her, but her father has promised her to rich Gjermund. As her wedding to Gjermund draws near, Berit runs away and seeks refuge with Tore and his parents. She soon falls deathly ill but recovers, asking for, and getting, her father’s permission to marry Tore. Jealous Gjermund is determined to prevent their wedding, however, in a dramatic climactic scene playing out around the rushing river.
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10 ) Two People (1945)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 9
- IMDB User Review Score: 13
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
When the prestigious Dr. Arne Lundell completes the most important work of his life, a colleague from the University of Stockholm, Dr. Sander, complains against him for plagiarism. Marianne, wife of Arne, does everything possible to encourage her anxious husband for not understanding the reasons for this unjust accusation. In these circumstances, Sander is found dead. It seems that it is a suicide, but his soon finds that he has been murdered. Suspicions fall on Dr. Arne. The dramatic situation begins to unravel when Arne discovers, by chance, a letter by which he discovers that his wife was the secret lover of the missing professor.
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10 ) Leaves from Satan’s Book (1920)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 10
- IMDB User Review Score: 10
- Letterboxd User Score: 11
Dreyer’s classic silent film tells the tale of Satan’s (Helge Nissen) banishment from heaven.
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9 ) They Caught the Ferry (1948)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 11
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 9
A man and a woman on a motorcycle arrive with a ferry to Assens. They want to catch the next ferry in Nyborg, on the other side of the island, but this ferry will leave in three quarters of an hour and the ferry berth is 70 km away. The road has lot of curves, but they ride the bike in a high speed. An old-fashioned car has left the ferry in Assens at the same time as the motorcycle. They try to overtake the car on the road, but the driver won’t let them pass. When they take a chance on his right side, the motorcycle smashes into a tree. The Ferryman takes the bodies of the man and the woman on his boat to the land of the dead.
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8 ) Michael (1924)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 6
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 8
- IMDB User Review Score: 7
- Letterboxd User Score: 6
A famed artist fights his passion for a male model, until the young man falls for a woman.
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7 ) The Parson’s Widow (1920)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 8
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 4
- IMDB User Review Score: 6
- Letterboxd User Score: 7
A young man is elected by a small village to be its parson. As part of his duties, he is required to marry the widow of the parson before him. This poses two problems–first, the widow is old enough to be his grandmother, and second, he is already engaged to another woman.
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6 ) Gertrud (1964)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 7
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 7
- IMDB User Review Score: 5
- Letterboxd User Score: 5
Hopeless romantic Gertrud inhabits a turn-of-the-century milieu of artists and musicians, where she pursues an idealized notion of love that will always elude her. She abandons her distinguished husband and embraces an affair with a young concert pianist, who falls short of her desire for lasting affection. When an old lover returns to her life, fresh disappointments follow, and Gertrud must try to come to terms with reality.
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5 ) Master of the House (1925)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 6
- IMDB User Review Score: 8
- Letterboxd User Score: 7
A bully browbeats his wife and children until he meets his match in the woman who raised him.
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4 ) Vampyr (1932)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 5
- IMDB User Review Score: 4
- Letterboxd User Score: 4
A traveler obsessed with the supernatural visits an old inn and finds evidence of vampires.
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3 ) Day of Wrath (1943)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 2
- IMDB User Review Score: 3
- Letterboxd User Score: 3
In a Danish village in the early 1600s, a young woman named Anne, whose mother was thought to be a witch, develops sympathy toward an old woman, Marte, who is accused of witchcraft. The intervention of Anne’s older but kindly husband, Pastor Absalon saved her mother — but now, urged on by his overbearing mother, he refuses to help Marte. When Absalon’s son returns home and is attracted to Anne, it’s a matter of time before her family destiny catches up with her.
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2 ) The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 5
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 1
- IMDB User Review Score: 1
- Letterboxd User Score: 1
A classic of the silent age, this film tells the story of the doomed but ultimately canonized 15th-century teenage warrior. On trial for claiming she’d spoken to God, Jeanne d’Arc is subjected to inhumane treatment and scare tactics at the hands of church court officials. Initially bullied into changing her story, Jeanne eventually opts for what she sees as the truth. Her punishment, a famously brutal execution, earns her perpetual martyrdom.
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1 ) Ordet (1955)
Review Website Ranks:
- Rotten Tomatoes Critic: 1
- Rotten Tomatoes Users: 2
- IMDB User Review Score: 1
- Letterboxd User Score: 2
The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father’s religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel’s wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone’s beliefs are put to the test.
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Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Best Movies
Carl Theodor Dreyer Review Website Filmography Rankings
| Film | RT Critic | RT User | IMDB | Letterboxd | Overal Rank |
| Ordet (1955) | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) | 5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Day of Wrath (1943) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Vampyr (1932) | 1 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Master of the House (1925) | 1 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 5 |
| Gertrud (1964) | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| The Parson’s Widow (1920) | 8 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
| Michael (1924) | 6 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 8 |
| They Caught the Ferry (1948) | 8 | 11 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
| Two People (1945) | 8 | 9 | 13 | 9 | 10 |
| Leaves from Satan’s Book (1920) | 8 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 10 |
| The Bride of Glomdal (1926) | 8 | 11 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| Love One Another (1922) | 8 | 11 | 12 | 11 | 13 |
| Once Upon a Time (1922) | 8 | 11 | 14 | 11 | 14 |
| The President (1920) | 8 | 11 | 15 | 11 | 15 |
| The Village Church (1947) | 8 | 11 | 15 | 16 | 16 |
| Water from the Land (1946) | 8 | 11 | 15 | 16 | 16 |
| Storstrøm Bridge (1950) | 8 | 11 | 18 | 18 | 18 |
| Thorvaldsen (1949) | 8 | 11 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| A Castle Within a Castle (1955) | 8 | 11 | 20 | 19 | 20 |
| The Fight Against Cancer (1947) | 8 | 11 | 22 | 21 | 21 |
| Good Mothers (1942) | 8 | 11 | 21 | 22 | 21 |
