The Girl with the Needle

Lore & Background

The film follows Karoline, a young woman in Copenhagen in 1919, who cannot claim widow's compensation because her husband Peter, deployed in war, has not been declared dead. After Peter returns mutilated and Karoline has begun a relationship with her boss Jørgen and become pregnant, she rejects Peter. Jørgen's mother forbids the marriage, and Karoline attempts a self-abortion with a needle but is stopped by a woman named Dagmar and a 7-year-old girl, Erena. Dagmar runs a sweets shop that secretly operates an adoption agency for unwanted babies. Karoline gives birth, takes the baby to Dagmar, and becomes a wet nurse there, bonding with Dagmar and Erena. She discovers Dagmar is murdering the babies, including her own daughter. After a confrontation, Dagmar is arrested, and Karoline survives a fall, reconciles with Peter, and later adopts Erena.

Reader's Guide

The Girl with the Needle is significant as a dark, stylized retelling of the crimes of Dagmar Overbye, Denmark's most prolific serial killer, who manipulated impoverished mothers and murdered their children in the early 20th century. The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered on 15 May 2024 to critical acclaim. It was named one of the top 5 international films of 2024 by the National Board of Review and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards and for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. Its critical reception was strong, with a 92% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 82, indicating universal acclaim. The film's legacy lies in its artistic approach to a grim historical subject, described by critics as a 'poetic and dark fairy tale' and a 'bold and expressive nightmare.'

Did You Know?

• The film is very loosely based on the true story of Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye, who was first sentenced to death in 1921, later commuted to life in prison.
• It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and premiered on 15 May 2024.
• The film was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.
• Director Magnus von Horn described the film as a 'fairy tale for grownups' and aimed 'not to just make a straight genre piece [but] to flirt with genre.'

A Gothic Descent into Maternal Horror

In 1919 Copenhagen, Karoline finds herself trapped between a husband who has not been officially declared dead and a life of squalor working as a factory seamstress. When her mutilated, psychologically shattered husband Peter returns, she rejects him, only to be abandoned again when her boss Jørgen's mother forbids their marriage. A desperate attempt at a shoddy abortion at the local baths is interrupted by Dagmar, a woman who runs a sweets shop that doubles as a secretive placement service for unwanted infants. After giving birth to a daughter, Karoline—unable to pay Dagmar's fee—offers herself as a wet nurse and gradually bonds with Dagmar and the seven-year-old Erena who lives in the household. Their shared loneliness curdles into recreational ether use, and Karoline begins to suspect that the 'adoptions' Dagmar arranges are something far darker. The film's climax forces Karoline to witness the full scope of Dagmar's killing, and the aftermath—Dagmar's trial, Karoline's reconciliation with Peter at a traveling circus, and her eventual adoption of Erena—closes a circle of maternal grief and survival.

Rooted in Denmark's Darkest True Crime

The Girl with the Needle draws its central conceit from one of the most disturbing criminal cases in Danish history. In the 1920s, a woman named Dagmar Overbye operated under the guise of helping impoverished mothers place their unwanted children with adoptive families, only to systematically murder every infant entrusted to her care. She was initially sentenced to death in 1921, though that verdict was later commuted to a life imprisonment. To this day, Overbye holds the record as Denmark's most prolific serial killer. Director Magnus von Horn has been careful to describe the film as only very loosely inspired by these events rather than a straightforward biographical retelling. The narrative transplants the core dynamic—exploited mothers, a predatory caretaker, and the systematic destruction of vulnerable children—into a Gothic, psychological-horror framework set in 1919 Copenhagen. This distance allows the filmmakers to explore themes of class desperation, maternal identity, and institutional failure through a genre lens rather than a documentary one, while still honoring the gravity of the real tragedy that inspired the story.

A Festival Darling and Award Contender

The Girl with the Needle arrived at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024 as a Palme d'Or contender, and its world premiere on 15 May earned immediate critical praise that set the tone for a remarkable awards season. The National Board of Review placed it among the top five international films of the year, a distinction that carried significant weight in the broader conversation about non-English-language cinema. The film went on to receive nominations for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards and Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards, cementing its status as one of the defining foreign-language releases of 2024. Beyond Cannes, the film found audiences at the 49th Toronto International Film Festival in September, where it screened in the Special Presentations section, and at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival's World Cinema program. Distribution was secured quickly: Mubi, parent company of sales agent The Match Factory, acquired rights across North and Latin America, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey, and India just days after the festival debut, with New York and Los Angeles premieres following in early December.

Von Horn's Gothic Fairy Tale

Director Magnus von Horn, whose prior features include The Here After (2015) and Sweat (2020), co-wrote the screenplay with Line Langebek and described his creative goal as crafting a 'fairy tale for grownups' rather than a conventional horror picture. He emphasized that the intention was to 'flirt with genre,' using Gothic and psychological-horror conventions as a lens through which the cinematographer, set designers, and costume team could shape the story's emotional architecture. The production was a transnational effort: Malene Blenkov produced for Nordisk Film Denmark, Mariusz Wlodarski for Poland's Lava Films, with Nordisk Film Sweden as a co-production partner. The cast is anchored by Vic Carmen Sonne as Karoline and Trine Dyrholm as the predatory Dagmar Overbye, supported by Besir Zeciri as the damaged Peter, Joachim Fjelstrup as Jørgen, Tessa Hoder as the skeptical Frida, and Avo Knox Martin as the haunting child Erena. The film's visual and narrative texture—ether-fogged interiors, a sweets shop that functions as a mausoleum, and a circus that becomes a refuge—reflects von Horn's stated desire to let genre conventions serve the emotional truth of the material rather than dominate it.

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