Dancer in the Dark

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Dancer in the Dark

R

Released Oct 6, 2000

2h 20m

Drama

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Popcornmeter

70%

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122 Reviews

91%

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50,000+ Ratings

Selma is a Czech immigrant, a single mother working in a factory in rural America. Her salvation is passion for music, specifically, the all-singing, all-dancing numbers found in classic Hollywood musicals. Selma harbors a sad secret: she is losing her eyesight and her son Gene stands to suffer the same fate if she can't put away enough money to secure him an operation. When a desperate neighbor falsely accuses Selma of stealing his savings, the drama of her life escalates to a tragic finale.

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Critics Consensus

Dancer in Dark can be grim, dull, and difficult to watch, but even so, it has a powerful and moving performance from Bjork and is something quite new and visionary.

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David Ansen

Newsweek

Dancer is like no other movie around. Shot in bleached-out video colors in rough, hand-held style, the film is at once aggressively modern and deliberately, melodramatically, old-fashioned.

Mar 7, 2018

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Owen Gleiberman

Entertainment Weekly

Rated: A

Sep 7, 2011

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Peter Matthews

Sight & Sound

The situations that writer-director Lars von Trier serves up here might be embarrassingly florid, but the coupling of his manipulative skills and Björk's showy intensity results in a movie with the force of an emotional bulldozer.

Dec 2, 2002

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Theo Estes

The Spool

Dancer in the Dark critiques the relentless optimism of mid-century movie musicals, but it also puts the American cultural narrative under the microscope.

Oct 8, 2020

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A.S. Hamrah

The Baffler

Von Trier infamously harassed Björk while making this film, yet its power, insight, and prescience, unpleasant and hard to take, are undiminished...

Sep 16, 2020

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Michael J. Casey

Boulder Weekly

Björk plays Selma, a Czech immigrant suffering from a degenerative eye disorder. It's a rare, hereditary disease, and it'll steal her sight but not the song in her heart.

Rated: 4/5

Jul 25, 2020

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Mason M

Lars Von Trier is one of my all time favorite directors and this film still blew me away. Dancer In The Dark is a difficult watch like most of Von Trier's films but in a different way, it's not just grotesque and disturbing, it may be the saddest film I've ever seen. This film is wonderfully done, Björk's performance is amazing, the dance sequences have amazing cinematography, and it's amazingly written. This is just another reason that Von Trier is one of my favorite directors.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

09/11/24

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PJ G

Unique cinema drama with a style reflecting the main character beautifully played by Bjork.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

09/01/24

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Audience Member

It is perfect, since the first to the last minute.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

07/22/24

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j a

Watching this was like watching tommy wiseau's 'The Room' It appears so laughably amateurish that you think you are not in on the joke. That's all I have to say really, utter garbage from start to finish if it is meant to be serious then it's definitely one of the worst films I've ever seen but I suspect its done on purpose for some reason. Worst thing was I found out after this 'director' slaughtered a donkey for one of his films and now I feel even more sick I watched this trash.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/22/24

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Jill C

NOT depressing... just supremely SAD. Neither me or my husband have ever forgotten the first run screening of this. We'd planned to go out for dinner afterward and just had to go straight home, shellshocked. Proceed to fetal position. A film for grownups. And -in a weird way- it's a musical. Did not affect our appreciation.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/16/24

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Alec B

Often its cynicism is a bit too juvenile (even by Von Trier standards) but there is still something strangely compelling about the film's brutality mixed with these really peculiar songs. Also, I think that Bjork has just the right kind of otherworldly innocence for the role.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/09/24

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Lars von Trier

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Björk

Selma Jezkova

Catherine Deneuve

Kathy

David Morse

Bill

Cara Seymour

Linda

Peter Stormare

Jeff

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Synopsis

Selma is a Czech immigrant, a single mother working in a factory in rural America. Her salvation is passion for music, specifically, the all-singing, all-dancing numbers found in classic Hollywood musicals. Selma harbors a sad secret: she is losing her eyesight and her son Gene stands to suffer the same fate if she can't put away enough money to secure him an operation. When a desperate neighbor falsely accuses Selma of stealing his savings, the drama of her life escalates to a tragic finale.

Director: Lars von Trier
Producer: Peter Aalbæk Jensen, Vibeke Windeløv
Screenwriter: Lars von Trier
Distributor: Fine Line Features
Production Co: Zentropa Entertainment, Slot Machine, Zentropa Entertainment France, France 3 Cinéma, Pain Unlimited GmbH Filmproduktion, arte France Cinéma, Trust Film Svenska
Rating: R (Some Violence)
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 6, 2000, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 1, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA): $4.2M
Runtime: 2h 20m
Sound Mix: Dolby SR, Dolby Digital, Surround
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

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