As it turns out, Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 is delicately told with both humor and sentimentality.

| Jan 20, 2021

Nymphomaniac has an amazingly eclectic cast of weirdos and movie stars acting weird, and their stamina goes a long way toward keeping things sweaty, grotesque, and funny for more than four NC-17-rated hours...

| Mar 27, 2020

This is Nordic-noir sex, enveloped in a film as complex as it is unforgettable.

| Jan 2, 2018

The fun is paid for with interest in the movie's second half by the debasing sexual escapades endured by the more mature and less conventionally appealing Gainsbourg.

| Aug 16, 2017

Less a disciplined, focused motion picture than an all-you-can-eat buffet where the director overloads his plate, and encourages his audience to do the same.

| Jun 18, 2016

Nymphomaniac is convincing as a work of philosophical seriousness.

| Apr 17, 2014

"Nymphomaniac: Vol I" is crazy. It's funny, it's lewd, it's disturbing, it's odd, it's extremely graphic, it's brutal. And if you can handle all that, it's pretty good.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 4, 2014

Without an explanation for the protagonist's physical and emotional injuries, it's a head-scratcher. As with Joe's sexual compulsion, scratching can't cure the itch.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 3, 2014

A father confessor to his benighted characters, von Trier may revel in the muck, but Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 is anything but a dirty movie.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 27, 2014

There's nothing inhibited about this cut and its parade of genitalia in close-up. Strip the plot down, or rather, dress it up, and it's about a quest.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 26, 2014

Lars von Trier is funny. Who knew? That's certainly the most startling revelation to come from Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 .

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 26, 2014

A pornographic work of art-obsessive, repetitive, at times remarkably eccentric, but never simple-minded or dull.

| Mar 24, 2014

The most shocking thing about the film is that it often prompts laughs.

| Mar 23, 2014

Lars von Trier is an actual genius, as opposed to the myriad filmmakers called genius who are actually just clever.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 22, 2014

It has some accomplished performances and very fine sequences - not enough to make a four-hour film completely bearable, but better than I'd feared.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 21, 2014

Filmed with the aid of body doubles and digital trickery, the ''realistic'' sex scenes are like illustrations in an anatomy lecture, explicit but rarely sensual. Paradoxically, in most other respects the film has the unreality of a fable.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 21, 2014

Von Trier is after nothing less than the human condition here, and even if he doesn't always hit the mark, he absolutely deserves points for ambition.

| Mar 21, 2014

Thurman is the one blast of the life force in this handsome, sometimes funny, oddly remote film.

| Mar 21, 2014

Despite the sometimes-grim tone and bleak color palate, it's an extremely funny film, playful, even.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 21, 2014

Nymphomaniac: Vol. I is intimate, in-your-face, and, mostly, enjoyably ridiculous.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 21, 2014