Nico, 1988
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: August 1, 2018 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews
Positive:
20
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerAug 17, 2018
“I’m selective about my audience,” says the singer. “I don’t need everybody to like me.” With a dour, sophisticated film that won’t be to everyone’s taste, writer-director Nicchiarelli seems to have taken those words to heart. Read full review
85
TheWrapDave WhiteAug 1, 2018
It’s Dyrholm’s performance that anchors everything. Read full review
83
Original-CinLiam LaceyAug 22, 2018
Nicchiarelli’s film makes a case that Nico’s instability and bleakness was no pose. Read full review
83
The Film StageJose SolísAug 1, 2018
In Dyrholm, Nicchiarelli found the ideal partner to bring to life such an iconic figure. The Danish actress channels Christa’s larger than life presence, her sardonic charm, and most surprising of all: her singing voice. Read full review
80
Rolling StoneDavid FearAug 2, 2018
It’s a posthumous gift to Päffgen. Even her death, shown here as Nico leaving her house on a sunny Ibiza day, bike in hand and a colorful door closing behind here, is presented with a sense of grace. Nicciarelli spares us nothing but still gives her dignity on way out. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 2, 2018
The star of Susanna Nicchiarelli’s freely fictionalized biopic, Trine Dyrholm, finds fierce beauty in the woman Nico has become. I’ve never seen a performance quite like it — unsparingly harsh, but also graceful, droll and tender, a portrait of soul-weariness laced with a yearning for salvation. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlAug 1, 2018
Nico, 1988 offers all I want from this kind of movie: a sense of what time with someone unknowable might have been like. Read full review
80
The New York TimesJeannette CatsoulisJul 31, 2018
Ms. Dyrholm, photographed frequently in brutally unforgiving close-up, fully captures the faded charisma of the woman whose life reads like a Who’s Who of the New York midcentury art scene. Read full review
80
Screen DailySarah Ward
Nicchiarelli brings broader contemplations that help lift the film beyond the usual run-through of sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, regrets, righting past wrongs, carving out meaningful relationships with those previously neglected along the way, and facing the future on one’s own terms. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleG. Allen JohnsonAug 9, 2018
Happiness might remain elusive in Nico’s last years, but after years of loneliness and fading fame, at least she can catch a glimpse from time to time. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 9, 2018
It’s Dyrholm’s film, though, and Nicchiarelli’s, and between them the two women do honor to their subject in all her contradictions. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comNick AllenAug 1, 2018
But the movie is best of all a showcase for Dyrholm’s full-fledged interpretation of Nico, who is distinctly removed from the poppiness anyone might have for her earlier work, whether it's the "Velvet Underground & Nico" or her solo record "Chelsea Girl." Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubClayton PurdomAug 1, 2018
Like Gus Van Sant’s "Last Days," Nico, 1988 is at its best in these liminal moments, its creation of a cognitive space to ponder an artist’s legacy, as well as literal spaces that reflect it: faded ballrooms, twilit monuments, bleary countrysides. Unlike that movie, though, Nico, 1988 occasionally succumbs to hoary biopic clichés, awkwardly imposing narrative beats. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineWes GreeneJul 29, 2018
The unflashy, austere visual style of the film is but a veneer over writer-director Susanna Nicchiarelli's deceptively radical treatment of the musical biopic. Read full review
75
The Film StageC.J. Prince
It’s the brains behind the brawn that makes Brawl in Cell Block 99 one of the year’s highlights in the action genre. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranAug 2, 2018
Dyrholm, an actress of formidable presence who expertly handles her own singing as well as the acting, gives a strong, truthful, unflinching performance that powers the film the way Christa's energy powered the bands she was in those late days. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterDeborah Young
Dyrholm is at her multifaceted best here in the glammed-down, uglified role of an older rock ‘n' roll star on the skids. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen Gleiberman
Dyrholm’s performance is a powerhouse of authenticity. Her moroseness is mesmerizing, but she also gives Nico a tense intelligence, and her singing is uncanny. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichApr 21, 2018
Thanks to the fleshed out messiness of Dyrholm’s performance, and how eerily the former Eurovision contestant brings Nico back to life whenever she sings, the movie is able to support the sketchiness of its approach. Read full review
63
Film Journal InternationalDavid NohAug 1, 2018
Dyrholm fully immerses herself in the iconic legend that was Nico, at the same time investing her with so much desperately pulsing life—a true artist portraying another—that it uplifts what could have been a very dreary slog of a movie. Read full review
60
CineVueJohn Bleasdale
Danish singer and actress Trine Dyrholm plays the diva with verve and energy, in a portrait which is also something of a reevaluation. Read full review
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