Melancholia

2011 Directed by Lars von Trier

Enjoy it while it lasts

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.

Kirsten Dunst Charlotte Gainsbourg Kiefer Sutherland Charlotte Rampling John Hurt Alexander Skarsgård Stellan Skarsgård Brady Corbet Udo Kier Jesper Christensen Cameron Spurr Deborah Fronko James Cagnard Katrine A. Sahlstrøm

Alternative Titles

忧郁症, 世紀末婚禮

drama science fiction

130 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Anna ★★★★ 1

Kirsten Dunst representing depression and not being bothered by the upcoming end of the world? relatable.
Charlotte Gainsbourg representing anxiety and freaking out because of the upcoming end of the world? also relatable.
Review by maria ★★★★ 9

lars von trier, thanks for the depression luv
Review by Grooveman ★★★★★ 13

The feel bad movie of the year! I think Von Trier's next movie should be about puppies.
Review by Scott Anderson ★★★★ 13

Typically I can find the words to describe how I feel regarding a film as the credits are still rolling on the screen. My mind builds up various thoughts throughout and I cannot wait to unleash them as soon as possible, but I had to sleep on Melancholia before typing up this review. In fact, I'm still not quite sure if I am ready.
A graceful and fascinating look at a subject like depression, I found moments within the film that were utterly spellbinding, and in those moments I was sure I was in love with this work by Von Trier. However, every so often I was forced to question whether the nature of the storytelling and the pacing of…
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★ 17

"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."
-Andrei Tarkovsky
An enigmatic feature with wannabe Tarkovskian cinematography, planetary imagery, a classical score and a high-budget-looking Dogme style? Trier must be out of his mind!
Not quite.
Melancholia's two very first shots are references to cinematic influences:
- The first pays respect to L'année dernière à Marienbad (1961).
- The second shot displays the famous painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder entitled Jagers in de Sneeuw (The Hunters in the Snow), previously featured in two Tarkovsky masterpieces.
The film feels, above all, as an attempt to fix the evident…
Review by brat pitt ★★★★½

if you have/had depression or anxiety or both (like i used to!) then you'll relate and you'll wish a planet would REALLY crash into Earth!

Recent reviews

Review by 𝔐𝔢𝔩𝔱𝔢𝔪 ★★★★★

Fuck.

I probably shouldn’t have watched that after how awful this week has been.
Review by Floppy Siliconey ★★★½

Lars is such a muppet that it saps all impact out of anything he does.
So far.
Review by sahiL ★

Somebody please explain this movie to me. I’ve seen other movies by Lars Von Trier but this somehow did not make sense to me.
Review by brotherdeacon ★★½ 2

Lars and crew did a magnificent and truly artistic job of making the camera and sound design accomplish what this master director had instructed in his self-authored screenplay. Unfortunately, for all it's technical success, Melancholia presents a covering of great promise, but wrapping a banal core. Although it's a "big picture," the ideas behind all its technique, nuance and Flemish shading are just not there. What a pity. What a sad contrivance.
At its heart Melancholia remains as shallow as David Lynch's Dune and perhaps suffers much of its purposeless excess. He couldn't even hold off from choosing Wagnerian charts to drive this emotional porn, all the time manufacturing associative reactions while side-stepping a primary need for intellectual struggle in…
Review by Dylan Früh ★★★½

Quite an apt title for such a great parley into loneliness and depression (perhaps only rivaled by the many melancholy masterpieces of Charlie Kaufman), but I sure wish Lars von Trier would put down the zoom lenses and stop drinking caffeine, feels like a crackhead made a screwball documentary, maybe next time Lars, you consider a depressant like alcohol instead. Ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
P.S. I now have a strange desire to watch Solaris, AH SPAAAAAAAACE!!!!!!
Review by luke_hershey ★★★★½

This movie is an (I believe intentional) emotional slog. It feels like it’s six hours long. But it’s arguably Lars’ most mature film, and you’ll have a hard time finding another movie that captures despair as well as this one does.
Review by xavier ★★★

this movie has a lot to say, and i heard all of it but was interested by very little
Review by slimsky1 ★★★★

Cuando un director en estado de depresión decide hacer una trilogía de películas para expresar lo que sienten ocurren cosas como estas.
Muy imaginativa y poco común la idea de que su personaje principal tenga el estado de animo limitado a la cercanía de un planeta nuevo con respecto a la tierra, la cual representa todos los deseos mundanos del ser humano.
Como curiosidad está película es la segunda de la famosa trilogía de la depresión y posee un plano inicial similar pero menos bello que en "antichrist", aunque la banda sonora es igual de excelente en ambos films.
Review by Imam 👻 ★★★★

This movie basically the cinematic form of depression and anxiety.
No kidding, I got fucking surreal dream after watching this.