The Girl with the Needle
MUBI | Release Date: December 6, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 22 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 10, 2025
The ever-reliable Dyrholm is both charismatic and curdling as the grubby matriarch. But most of the film is writ large and affectingly in Sonne’s agonised face. Read full review
100
Original-CinLiz BraunDec 4, 2024
The Girl with The Needle is a harrowing drama based on real-life crimes that took place in Copenhagen around 1920. Directed by Magnus von Horn, the film is beautiful to look at but difficult to watch — this is dark, gripping, Bergman-esque fare. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshDec 7, 2024
The film is a harrowing and eerie horror fairy tale from another time, even as it feels startlingly fresh and always unpredictable. Read full review
90
VarietyGuy LodgeMay 18, 2024
The extremity of suffering on display here makes for difficult viewing, scarcely leavened by the expressionistic beauty of its presentation. But von Horn’s film never plays as empty miserablism, in large part thanks to its grave understanding of the moral and spiritual reasoning behind unimaginable acts of violence. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineJim VorelDec 10, 2024
Regardless of how you approach it, The Girl with the Needle remains an absolutely harrowing piece of historical horror, with an atmosphere of coldness and all-too-real misanthropy that captures a searing sense of truth. Read full review
83
The PlaylistBrian FarvourDec 6, 2024
The haunting atmosphere of The Girl with the Needle lies in equal measure with the acting masterclass that serves as the film’s primary source of fuel. Read full review
83
The Daily BeastNick SchagerSep 13, 2024
As grim, and transfixing, as they come. Read full review
83
IndieWireSophie Monks KaufmanMay 18, 2024
Von Horn, however, cares for his characters and each is allowed a hardwon grace note. One leaves the cinema entertained and reeling, very unsure of what in any other context would be so easy to judge. Read full review
83
The Film StageSavina PetkovaMay 18, 2024
It is surprising, stylish, and unabashedly brave. Read full review
80
Little White LiesDavid JenkinsJan 10, 2025
It’s Sonne’s remarkable, multifarious performance that really lifts this one above the pack. She uses her face with the expressiveness of a silent film actress, so when the big emotions eventually come they hit especially hard. Read full review
80
Screen RantMae AbdulbakiDec 5, 2024
while the film may meander some, von Horn and Langebek’s script never loses sight of the story, offering something that is deeply bleak but also worth thinking about. Read full review
80
ColliderLuna GuthrieDec 5, 2024
It is not a movie with the intention of entertaining its audience, but rather of challenging, reminding, and warning. Read full review
80
The New York TimesNatalia WinkelmanDec 5, 2024
The Girl With the Needle is most intriguing when it lingers in its disturbing fictions, which come to life with exceptional style. Read full review
80
Time OutPhil de SemlyenMay 30, 2024
With his energised 2021 breakthrough Sweat, von Horn followed a young influencer grappling with the dark side of online life. This period piece offers a very different kind of female odyssey through a lonely and forbidding world. The result is harrowing but seriously impressive. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 23, 2024
It’s a black-and-white period piece invested with a supremely eerie folkloric edge – a bleak historical chapter made timeless, and all the more troubling for it. Read full review
80
The Film VerdictStephen DaltonMay 18, 2024
Graced by a strong cast, visual poetry and great formal control, this brooding meditation on evil still resonates a century later. Read full review
80
Screen DailyFionnuala HalliganMay 18, 2024
Two unrelentingly fascinating performances from Vic Carmen Sonne and Trine Dyrholm, and an exquisite black-and-while aesthetic which moves from leering vaudeville to something filthier and shameful, command attention. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinMay 18, 2024
It all could be too much reality to handle if it weren’t for the fact that mercifully, the film ends on a hopeful note, with the most wicked characters punished for their sins and the good given a second chance. It’s undoubtedly something of a fairy-tale ending, but the kind we need these days. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter BradshawMay 18, 2024
There’s no doubting the shiver of pure fear that runs through this movie from beginning to end. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleRichard WhittakerJan 30, 2025
Its answers are uneasy and disquieting, and the true root of its horror. Read full review
75
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanJan 31, 2025
An Oscar nominee for best international feature, Denmark’s harrowing, slow-boil thriller “The Girl With the Needle” has been described by some as a horror film. And from the hallucinatory opening montage of distorted, leering faces, this black-and-white drama promises to be the stuff of nightmares. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoDec 6, 2024
Based on the true story of a Danish serial killer named Dagmar Overbye, "The Girl with the Needle" becomes almost numbing in its brutality. Still, it's a well-made drama with a resonance that echoes a hundred years after the crimes it documents. Read full review
More From This Movie

82 Critic Reviews

tbd User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 77 Project Hail Mary
2 75 Send Help
3 73 Hoppers
4 72 The Sheep Detectives
5 68 Crime 101
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL