Denmark’s entry to 2025 Academy Awards
In a pre-feminist age, Karoline is what entirely too many people would call a “fallen woman.” Alone, unemployed and pregnant by a man not her husband, she is acknowledged only to be punished, and invisible for all remaining purposes. Women like Karoline don’t fall of their own accord. They’re dropped, often from a great height, by a ruling patriarchy that doesn’t even care to watch them splatter. That involuntary descent, to not just a grimy gutter but a near-Hadean underworld of human cruelty, is the chief horror in “The Girl With the Needle,” Magnus von Horn’s extraordinary and upsetting film — an adult fairytale abundantly populated with witches and wretches, but where society is revealed as the true monster. – Variety

“Horribly effective grand guignol, made with enormous technical flair, like Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd without the bleak humour – there are touches of Lynch, Von Trier or even Tod Browning here” – Guardian

“The Girl With the Needle” is most intriguing when it lingers in its disturbing fictions, which come to life with exceptional style.” – New York Times