Antichrist · reception & legacy

2009 · Lars von Trier

How Antichrist has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Booed and walked out of at Cannes 2009 — where an Ecumenical Jury even handed it a special 'anti-award' — it has since been reclaimed as the harrowing first chapter of von Trier's Depression Trilogy and a founding text of modern art-horror.

What's debated

The forever-fight: is it a sincere scream from von Trier's depression or misogynist provocation dressed up as art — and is he trolling either way?

Its footprint

'Chaos reigns,' growled by a self-disemboweling fox, escaped the film entirely to become one of cinephile internet's most durable memes — quoted by people who've never dared watch the movie.

Where it stands

A rite-of-passage watch in the extreme-cinema canon — the von Trier that Letterboxd users log with a shaking-hands review and a badge of survival.

★ Did you know? At the Cannes premiere, Charlotte Gainsbourg won Best Actress even as the film was booed — and von Trier, needled at the press conference, declared himself 'the best film director in the world.'

Named by the director

Influences Lars von Trier has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Andrei Tarkovsky — Von Trier dedicated Antichrist to Tarkovsky with an end-title card, citing him as the master whose imagery haunts the film — a dedication that drew derisive laughter at Cannes.