The Wave

2015, Norway, directed by Roar Uthaug (aka Bølgen)

Norwegian genre fare, watched out of curiosity when it popped up on Netflix. In most ways the picture is very similar to its Hollywood counterparts (the terrible disaster is ultimately the backdrop for the reunification of one particular nuclear family), but with some interesting nuances: it's a disaster film that needs to turn its lack of budget for special effects (restricted to a few sequences) into a virtue, and it makes smart use of pace, music, editing to create tension, while it also boasts a female lead able to match the male in terms of pragmatism in the business of survival.