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Antichrist

Antichrist (2009)

tomatometer

48

Average Rating: 5.5/10
Reviews Counted: 154
Fresh: 74 | Rotten: 80

Gruesome, explicit and highly controversial; Lars Von Triers arthouse-horror, though beautifully shot, is no easy ride.

38

Average Rating: 5.2/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 12 | Rotten: 20

Gruesome, explicit and highly controversial; Lars Von Triers arthouse-horror, though beautifully shot, is no easy ride.

audience

55

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 24,880

My Rating

Movie Info

This enormously controversial psychodrama-cum-horror film from Danish enfant terrible Lars von Trier charts the degeneration of a marriage into apocalyptic violence, chaos, and insanity following an unthinkable domestic tragedy. The film opens with a prologue. While they make love in their apartment on a snowy winter afternoon, a husband and wife known only as "He" and "She" (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) fail to keep an eye on their young toddler. In a horrific turn of events, the

Mar 1, 2010

$0.2M

IFC Films

All Critics (154) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (76) | Rotten (80) | DVD (5)

Of course, von Trier wants us to react, to be repulsed, shocked, offended. Mission accomplished.

January 29, 2010 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | Comment
Arizona Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Antichrist is a unique form of cruel and unusual punishment: an unrelenting orgy of graphic sex, violence and cynicism that also manages to be wildly pretentious.

November 20, 2009 Full Review Source: Dallas Morning News | Comments (2)
Dallas Morning News
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Self-loathing, mean, ugly and perfectly made, Antichrist is probably the best film ever that you'd recommend to absolutely no one.

November 13, 2009 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment (1)
Detroit News
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Antichrist ends up being more unnerving than it is terrifying, and a lot funnier than it's supposed to be.

November 13, 2009 Full Review Source: Toronto Star | Comments (2)
Toronto Star
Top Critic IconTop Critic

To watch the Danish provocateur's new film is to experience unrelenting pain, shading into revulsion, while being inspired by his virtuoso command of the medium and sharp intelligence.

November 12, 2009 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Von Trier and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle use sumptuous black-and-white photography and saturated color. Few movies are as beautifully wrought as this.

November 6, 2009 Full Review Source: Denver Post | Comment
Denver Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's audacious, gruesome and pushes to the extreme limits of acceptable cinema content: but it is never any of those things to exclude ordinary viewers.

March 1, 2011 Full Review Source: What Culture | Comment

... another provocation that is at once beautiful and perverse, personal and cynical, and filled with his sour vision...

November 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Parallax View | Comment
Parallax View

One of the most personal films ever made about anxiety, Antichrist is hitting retail stores just in time for the holiday season. Let your loved ones know that you care by letting chaos reign...in their Blu-ray player.

November 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

It is unrelenting, terrifying and profoundly powerful. And it is really, really ballsy; a claim that viewers will recognise as being highly ironic considering the ball-related events that take place within the film.

October 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Quickflix | Comment

Von Trier is a prankster so any attempt to guess at WTF he had in mind could just end up with the Danish auteur pulling your leg. The Fox may have said it best:"Chaos Reigns"

October 21, 2010 Full Review Source: Kinetofilm | Comment
Kinetofilm

Functioning as the inverse of the Biblical creation story, Antichrist is the most unique and divisive 'horror' film you are ever likely to see.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Cinema Autopsy | Comment
Cinema Autopsy

A beautiful and ultimately very sad film.

July 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You | Comment
Not Coming to a Theater Near You

A grim film that wants you to feel the pain its characters do.

June 4, 2010 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | Comment
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

It's a far cry from Nicolas Roeg's excellent 1973 chiller Don't Look Now, which maintains a high-gloss art-house sheen yet draws us into its similar story of a couple coping with the drowning death of their child.

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Creative Loafing | Comment
Creative Loafing

Built on a shallow premise designed to cheaply evoke feelings of disgust while elaborating on a simplistic theme.

March 12, 2010 Full Review Source: Window to the Movies | Comments (2)
Window to the Movies

Despite some strikingly flourishes, von Trier's latest makes him look less like a mad genius and more like he's simply, mad.

March 1, 2010 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comment
eFilmCritic.com

Wildly inconsistent, veering from boredom to moments of visual beauty to some of the most ghastly gruesomeness ever seen on screen.

February 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | Comment
Kansas City Star

Purely as a visual and visceral experience, puckish writer-diretor Lars von Trier produces an enormously powerful phantasmagoria that deals with and reproduces the effects of fear and depression.

January 31, 2010 Full Review Source: Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema | Comment
Reel Times: Reflections on Cinema

I cannot recommend Antichrist, but in a culture that hemorrhages death and torture nightly on shows like 24 or C.S.I., I can understand it.

January 28, 2010 Full Review Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | Comment
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

'Antichrist' begins promisingly for the genre but descends into schlock/slasher-school stuff.

January 13, 2010 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | Comments (2)
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Very hard to watch, and in the end it's doubtful it's worth the effort. But it has moments you won't forget, however much you may want to.

December 31, 2009 Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | Comment
One Guy's Opinion

A cinematic violation made worse by the fact that von Trier is such a gifted filmmaker.

December 21, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinemania | Comments (5)

But there is one very definite way to take the vibe of the whole thing, I'd say, and that's that this movie knows exactly what it is to suffer from panic attacks.

December 18, 2009 Full Review Source: LYTRules.com | Comment
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Antichrist

Not much stuff happens in Antichrist but if you were to sum Lars Von Trier's misogynistic art house horror into one word, that word would be overwhelming. Some may ask the message he was trying to get across and it is difficult to figure out. But it is about nature being Satans Garden of Eden and the bringer of life

April 17, 2012
Directors Cat
Directors Cat

Super Reviewer

As stated by Mark Kermode the brief explanation of the film is how you will react to it, Some People may Find it a thought provocative, Beautiful film while other will just think it's a typical horror filled with explicit sex and Highly Gruesome violence. I Found it a bit of both while "Antichrist" is beautifully shot

May 3, 2012
Joseph Mcnicholas

Super Reviewer

    1. She: Chaos reigns.
    – Submitted by Grace R (28 days ago)
    1. He: The thoughts distort reality, not the other way around.
    – Submitted by Jeshua H (3 months ago)
    1. She: A crying woman is a scheming woman.
    – Submitted by Blake J (5 months ago)
    1. She: When the three beggars arrive someone must die.
    – Submitted by Sam M (6 months ago)
    1. He: Is there any woods in particular? [pause]
    2. She: Eden.
    – Submitted by Baurushan J (8 months ago)

Latest News for Antichrist

April 26, 2012:
Lars von Trier's The Nymphomaniac Will Have Two Parts
He's aiming for a Cannes 2013 premiere.

February 11, 2010:
In Search of the Worst Date Movie
What is the worst date movie of all time? Slate's Jessica Grose examines the ingredients of a bad...

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Foreign Titles

  • Anticristo (ES)
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