Dogville
Lions Gate Films | Release Date: March 26, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
6
Negative:
9
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
EmpireAlan Morrison
Argue that von Trier's latest is theatre and not cinema. But at least acknowledge that Dogville, in a didactic and politicised stage tradition, is a great play that shows a deep understanding of human beings as they really are. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
It really is a masterpiece--von Trier's first, as it happens. Read full review
100
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
For passion, originality, and sustained chutzpah, this austere allegory of failed Christian charity and Old Testament payback is von Trier's strongest movie--a masterpiece, in fact. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Von Trier sets the action on a theatrical stage, spotlighting the existential isolation that weighs on people who don't seek larger visions of life, individuality, and community. Challenging, dramatic, provocative. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
If nothing else can be said of Dogville, it's a film that is like nothing else. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Mischievous, singular and profound. Read full review
100
Washington PostDesson Thomson
No matter how you come down on this movie politically, Dogville is a compelling chamber piece with constant cinematic surprises. And you remember that von Trier is, above everything else, a consummate filmmaker. Read full review
100
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Intentionally designed to rile as much as entertain. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
This galvanizing cinematic work is also gorgeous, experimental, alive with a Scandinavian strain of chutzpah, and artistically elegant. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
This unique cinematic experience is a parable of greed and revenge that could take place anywhere. Read full review
90
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
It plays like a baldfaced, brazen insult, but it is a stunningly accomplished one. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Kidman gives the most emotionally bruising performance of her career in Dogville, a movie that never met a cliche it didn't stomp on. Read full review
88
New York PostMegan Lehmann
A stunning display of a filmmaker adventuring on the far side of what's possible. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Despite its ultimate nuttiness, has a quiet, consuming power that sneaks up on you and doesn't go away. This is something new and ambitious for Von Trier: a work of compassion. Read full review
80
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The incendiary Dogville confirms the director's sadistic knack for locating his characters' (and his audience's) soft spots and prodding them for a singular emotional experience. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyScott Foundas
A postmodern morality play stripped nearly bare by its precocious creator, until only its boldness, cutting insight, intermittent hilarity and bracing violence remain. Read full review
80
The New York TimesStephen Holden
While you watch the movie, it can seem ridiculously long-winded. But once it's over, its characters' miserable faces remain etched in your memory, and its cynical message lingers. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Surprises, repulses and provokes. It's also brilliant and infuriating, wise and naïve, outrageous yet unforgettable. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Not for everyone. It is darkly funny, intellectually challenging and obliquely didactic. It also grows bleaker over the course of its nearly three-hour running time. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Dogville isn't for everyone, but there's some intellectually stimulating conversation fodder for those with the patience to navigate the film's rough terrain. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
May be the most fascinating, richly accomplished screw-up you'll see all year. Von Trier, who has always had a talent for provocation, nails another heroine to the cross while playing his role to the hilt - a moviemaking rebel in his own dog days. Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Only the heavy stylization mitigates some highly artificial plot contrivances, and the final photo montage of America's poor, while no doubt exciting to Von Trier the provocateur, is maddeningly oblique. Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
Lars von Trier's latest thingamabob is a large, pretentious blob of coulda-been. As in, it coulda been deep and insightful. It coulda been sociologically challenging. It coulda been formalistically thrilling. But it isn't. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Von Trier’s vision is amazingly thorough and exquisitely executed, but the audience may feel executed as well. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The film centers almost entirely on the faces of the townspeople, which Von Trier frames vividly. There’s nothing static about his technique, but everything else about the movie is dreary and closed off. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
Either an airless allegory about opportunistic Americans or another one of the director's parables of female persecution. OK, maybe it's both. But life is too short for three hours of misanthropy and misogyny. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Lars von Trier exhibits the imagination of an artist and the pedantry of a crank in Dogville, a film that works as a demonstration of how a good idea can go wrong. Read full review
40
VarietyTodd McCarthy
An artistically experimental, ideologically apocalyptic blast at American values that is as obvious in intent as it is murky in aesthetic achievement. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesManohla Dargis
A provocation, a coup de theatre and three hours of tedious experimentation. Read full review
40
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Von Trier, however, undercuts the universality of his own message with his meretricious closing credits, set to David Bowie's "Young Americans," which explicitly turns Dogville into an anti-American screed. Read full review
30
Film ThreatPhil Hall
If Dogville has a reason for importance, it is the astonishing all-star ensemble who try very hard to put life into their cardboard characters and make this silly film work. Read full review
30
TimeRichard Corliss
It's a brilliant idea, for about 10 minutes. Then the bare set is elbowed out of a viewer's mind by the threadbare plot and characterizations. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Bored me for most of its 178 minutes and then infuriated me with its cheap cynicism once it belatedly became interesting--which may be a tribute to writer-director Lars von Trier's gifts as a provocateur. Read full review
25
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
But as an artist, von Trier's contempt for humanity is becoming harder to hide with stylistic flourish. He doesn't even try here, and his arrogance is topped only by his misanthropy. Read full review
20
SalonCharles Taylor
Anti-Americanism is a small matter when a movie is anti-human. Dogville is as total a misanthropic vision as anything control freak Stanley Kubrick ever turned out. Read full review
20
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
Disembodied, patchy, pointless work, which isn't even successfully pretentious. Read full review
10
The New YorkerDavid Denby
What Lars von Trier has achieved is avant-gardism for idiots. From beginning to end, Dogville is obtuse and dislikable, a whimsical joke wearing cement shoes. [29 March 2004, p. 103]
10
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
A symphony for tin ears, a sniggering assessment of human nature delivered with the faux-lofty tone of a Lexus commercial.
10
SlateDavid Edelstein
The politics of Dogville are on par with a third-rate gangster picture: cheap, opportunistic nihilism, with no enlivening sense of humor. Read full review
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