Swedish film director Ruben Östlund consistently plays on conflicts created by how behavioral patterns connected with instincts and basic emotions, mostly fear, challenge and disturb the execution of complex social performances by social actors, often leading to embarrassment. In these ways, Östlund’s films deal with classic textbook examples of micro-sociology and social psychology. I intend both to analyze these recurrent features in some detail as well as the consequences of this for the kind of viewer engagement implied. The center of this analysis will be on the interplay of fear, denial and the many intricacies of embarrassment as on how the heavy reliance on such social schemes actually imbues the scenes with unexpected turns.