It is the first film in Trier's Golden Heart trilogy, which includes The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dark (2000), the former made in compliance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto.

[9] Breaking the Waves was well-received, with Emily Watson's acting receiving unanimous critical praise and earning her first Academy Award nomination.

Bess McNeill is a young and pretty Scottish woman who has, in the past, had treatment for unspecified mental health illness after the death of her brother.

She marries oil rig worker Jan Nyman, a Danish non-churchgoer, despite disapproval from her community and her Free Scottish Presbyterian Calvinist church.

Though her sister-in-law Dodo constantly reassures her that nothing she does will affect his recovery, Bess begins to believe these suggestions are the will of God and in accordance with loving Jan wholely.

Bess throws herself at Jan's doctor, but when he rebuffs her, she takes to picking up men off the street and allowing herself to be brutalized in increasingly cruel sexual encounters.

Bess decides to make what she thinks is the ultimate sacrifice for Jan: She unflinchingly returns to a derelict ship, where sailors brutally attack her.

Unbeknownst to the church elders, Jan and his friends have substituted bags of sand for Bess's body inside her sealed coffin.

Breaking the Waves was von Trier's first film after founding the Dogme 95 movement with fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg.

[13] It was shot entirely with handheld Super35mm cameras[14] and is the first of von Trier's Golden Heart trilogy, so named after a children's book called Guldhjerte he had read about a little girl lost in the woods who gives away everything she has to others needier than herself.

[18] Von Trier initially wanted to film the exterior scenes on the west coast of Jutland, then in Norway, then in Ostende, Belgium, then in Ireland, before finally settling on Scotland.

Others saw it as a high budget experimental film due to its elaborate chapter shots and handheld camera in a sketchy raw style that followed the actors closely.

In von Trier's early films, the protagonist is a man, typically a disillusioned idealist whose downfall is furthered by a deceitful, fatal woman.

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".

[27] 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".

[43][44] 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.

[46][47] Criterion again reacquired home distribution rights to the film and released a Dual-Format digipack 1-disc Blu-ray and 2-disc DVD edition on 15 April 2014.

[50] Pathé made the film available on DVD format on 1 September 2003, and featured its original aspect ratio in a 16:9 anamorphic screen, with Dolby Digital English 5.1, Italian 2.0 dub and multiple subtitle options.

The special features include select commentary from Lars von Trier and Anders Refn interviewed by Anthony Dod Mantle.