Nymphomaniac: Volume I
Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: March 21, 2014 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
64
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
5
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyPeter DebrugeDec 17, 2013
Racy subject aside, the film provides a good-humored yet serious-minded look at sexual self-liberation, thick with references to art, music, religion and literature, even as it pushes the envelope with footage of acts previously relegated to the sphere of pornography. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyMar 21, 2014
The best part of Lars von Trier's fascinating, engaging and often didactic Nymphomaniac is that, despite the sometimes-grim tone and bleak color palate, it's an extremely funny film, playful, even. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy BurrMar 20, 2014
Seems calculated to shock, but what’s most disquieting about Nymph()maniac is how funny, tender, thoughtful, and truthful it is, even as it pushes into genuinely seamy aspects of onscreen sexuality. Obnoxious he may be, but von Trier knows how to burrow into our ids. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Mar 10, 2014
The most shocking thing about Nymphomaniac, with its cock-shot montages and frankly descriptive narration, is how flat-out funny it often is. Read full review
83
IndieWireBoyd van Hoeij Dec 17, 2013
Nymphomaniac is indeed a major work that tries and, to a large extent, succeeds to organically synthesize the world, ideas and filmmaking savvy of von Trier in one sprawling and ambitious cinematic fable. Somewhat shockingly given the subject matter, the most stimulating material in Nymphomaniac isn't the explicit sex but how sexuality is discussed and understood. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 20, 2014
for those willing to go along with von Trier's typically in-your-face tactics, it's a good, if uncomfortable (and surprisingly funny), film. And the discomfort is part of what von Trier is after. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesMark OlsenMar 20, 2014
It provides, perhaps like the experiences of love and sex, a shifting variety of insights, emotions, unexpected lightness and moments of visceral shock. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirMar 20, 2014
One of the strangest and least summarizable motion pictures ever made: tragic and hilarious, tightly constructed and miscellaneous. Read full review
80
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonMar 18, 2014
If the off-kilter pleasures of Volume I is von Trier enticing us to watch the rest, consider me seduced. Read full review
80
The DissolveNoel MurrayMar 10, 2014
So far, Nymphomaniac looks like a major work from a major director: a compendium of all von Trier’s career-long preoccupations with gender roles, authoritarianism, religion, obsessive behavior, and lust. Read full review
80
The TelegraphTim RobeyFeb 20, 2014
Nymphomaniac, which mainly plays out in the banal home-and-office settings you might expect from a 1970s porn shoot, is less drop-dead gorgeous than Antichrist but significantly more human. Read full review
80
Total FilmKate StablesFeb 18, 2014
With explicit sex and penetrating philosophy, this erotic odyssey requires close attention and an open mind. Read full review
80
EmpireKim NewmanFeb 17, 2014
A provocative, engrossing, often hilarious, frequently tough picture. Not for all sensibilities but it’s among von Trier’s more playful, purely entertaining films, with insight and humour in even the horrors. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonDave CalhounDec 17, 2013
There’s plenty of flesh (much of it belonging to porn doubles), although the film is rarely, if ever, what most people would call erotic or pornographic. It’s neither deeply serious nor totally insincere; hovering somewhere between the two, it creates its own mesmerising power. Read full review
80
The GuardianXan BrooksDec 17, 2013
Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac bludgeons the body and tenderises the soul. It is perplexing, preposterous and utterly fascinating. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyDec 17, 2013
It is never boring and does provoke and stimulate, although not as a turn-on, not remotely. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovMar 26, 2014
The filmmaker brings neither condescension nor moral outrage here. A father confessor to his benighted characters, von Trier may revel in the muck, but Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 is anything but a dirty movie. Read full review
75
NPRBob MondelloMar 21, 2014
Oddly though, the most shocking thing about the film is that it often prompts laughs. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam LaceyMar 20, 2014
Easily the best scene of Nymphomaniac occurs in the first two hours, when Joe finds herself the other woman in a marriage breakup. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 20, 2014
A weirdly old-fashioned affair. If it weren't for the explicit sexual encounters, this could be an Ibsen or a Strindberg play, unclothed and unmoored from the late 19th or early 20th century. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 20, 2014
I refuse to render a final verdict on the latest cinematic outrage from Danish provocateur Lars Von Trier until Volume Two drops its undies on April 18th. But I will say this for Volume One: It's a mesmerizing mind game. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineEla BittencourtMar 16, 2014
But whereas female sexuality was borderline vampiric in Antichrist, this time we're in more ambiguous, contextually richer terrain, where desire is complicated not only by love, but also by a deep need for self-determination, and pride. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 11, 2014
For a movie that features so much naked flesh, it’s surprising how thoroughly un-erotic Nymphomaniac is. If intent is a defining characteristic of pornography, then this could be described as “anti-porn.” Read full review
70
The New YorkerDavid DenbyMar 24, 2014
Like most porn, even art porn, Nymphomaniac falls apart at the end. Von trier even seems to be pranking the audience. But the director has at last created a genuine scandal -- a provocation worth talking about. [24 March 2014, p.84]
70
TimeRichard CorlissMar 21, 2014
It’s as if von Trier shot the main scenes while in one of his famous depressive funks, then edited the film in a more cheerful, impish mood. At times, the tantalizing mixture of sexual neurosis and wayward humor in this memoir of a woman of pleasure suggests a collision between "Fanny Hill" and "Annie Hall." Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisMar 20, 2014
You’re unlikely to turn away. The problem with aesthetic shocks is that their power can drain off and their original effects become harder to replicate, so we’ll just have to see what happens next. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinMar 10, 2014
It’s both dumber and more entertaining than anyone had a right to expect. Read full review
67
The PlaylistBen BrockMar 20, 2014
Felt at times like a long-winded dirty joke – meandering, incoherently provocative, self-indulgent without being fun enough to make up for it. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsApr 3, 2014
Presented as a stand-alone film, but 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. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 20, 2014
It’s impossible to dismiss von Trier as merely a hype-monger. He’s too damnably good a filmmaker for that. Watching Nymphomaniac is to be reminded of his superb skills in creating vivid worlds and characters on screen. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottApr 4, 2014
Vol. 1 functions reasonably well as a standalone film in its own right, playing out like a dose of mass therapy, an interesting, Von Trier-led sexploration of humankind's conflicted approach to sex: We love it, but we also fear it and are often thoroughly ashamed of it. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperMar 20, 2014
Nymphomaniac Part 1 grows flat and monotonous, and comes across as just what it is: half a film. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigMar 20, 2014
For those who don't equate sexual appetite with the intricacies of fly fishing, Nymphomaniac: Vol. 1 is more tiresome than titillating. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternMar 20, 2014
The movie commits the sin of boredom, partly because Ms. Martin is exceedingly inexpressive. Read full review
40
SlateDana StevensMar 13, 2014
Occasionally, real dramatic scenes will spring from the loamy soil of von Trier’s free-wandering fantasy. But they’re isolated sketches, little one-act plays in the theater of degradation. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickMar 20, 2014
As in genuine porn, most of the acting (except for Skarsgard, who deliberately tries to be funny and sometimes succeeds) is as flat and uninteresting as the script — even when the older Joe narrates a montage of flaccid penises. Read full review
38
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreMar 10, 2014
Dull, carnal, and explicitly so in both regards, it’s a slow-moving slog through one crushed soul as she relates the empty, passionless pursuits of her youth. Read full review
30
Film.comJordan HoffmanMar 11, 2014
Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 is the worst thing Lars Von Trier has ever associated himself with. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleMar 20, 2014
Consists of long stretches of boredom, banal dialogue and contorted metaphors, interrupted by flashes of ugliness. See it if you want to be put off of sex for a month - longer if you're older, and perhaps for years if you're very young. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyMar 19, 2014
It's both exhausting and laughable in its eagerness to shock. That's the bad news. The worse news is that Volume II comes out next month. Read full review
0
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMar 20, 2014
Danish director Lars von Trier makes this tale of one woman’s banal sexual adventures into inadvertent comedy. The film makes an analogy between sex and fly-fishing — and fly-fishing comes off as more intriguing. Read full review
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