Dancer in the Dark critiques the relentless optimism of mid-century movie musicals, but it also puts the American cultural narrative under the microscope.

| Oct 8, 2020

Von Trier infamously harassed Björk while making this film, yet its power, insight, and prescience, unpleasant and hard to take, are undiminished...

| Sep 16, 2020

Björk plays Selma, a Czech immigrant suffering from a degenerative eye disorder. It's a rare, hereditary disease, and it'll steal her sight but not the song in her heart.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2020

A sweeping denunciation of the myth of the American dream-the idealized America put forth by escapist Hollywood fare.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 5, 2019

Dancer is like no other movie around. Shot in bleached-out video colors in rough, hand-held style, the film is at once aggressively modern and deliberately, melodramatically, old-fashioned.

| Mar 7, 2018

| Original Score: A | Sep 7, 2011

Denmark's enfant terrible Lars von Trier finally won the Camme Palme d'Or for this postmodern deconstructive musical featuring a stunning performance by Bjork.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 7, 2011

Habitually galling director Lars von Trier's musical is a black-swan genre rarity - a 1960s-set sledgehammer to Broadway and Hollywood's insistence on sunshiny endings in golden-era musicals about Nazis, murder and suicide.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 25, 2010

Everything about Bjork and Dancer in the Dark is enigmatic in an uncomfortable dissecting way that shows beauty in the crudest way, and crudeness in the complexity of advanced social mores.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 26, 2009

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 7, 2008

It is not pleasing to watch, by any conceivable definition of that word.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 12, 2007

Even without the musical numbers, von Trier has given us a compelling story with original characters.

| Original Score: A+ | Jul 29, 2007

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 6, 2005

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 1, 2005

| Original Score: A- | Apr 9, 2005

I was devastated by it. What bothers me is this: It is the easiest thing in the world to do... move people by destroying something beautiful.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Dec 6, 2004

Von Trier is vicious when it comes to milking the melodrama.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 5, 2003

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | May 20, 2003

Though flawed, Dancer in the Dark is a worthy addition to the filmography of Mr. von Trier.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 7, 2003

| Original Score: A | Jan 10, 2003