The Big Picture · Discussion · Roundtable

The 25 Best Movies of the Century: No. 20 - ‘Melancholia’

May 14, 2025/ 40 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins

Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins put Lars von Trier's Melancholia at No. 20, Amanda's pick and her favorite movie. They argue its case that the depressed person is the one seeing clearly, place it in von Trier's career and Kirsten Dunst's, and revisit the 2011 Cannes press conference that nearly buried it.

31 films across 3 segments.

AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.

No. 20: ‘Melancholia’25 for 25

Melancholia 2011

Amanda's pick and, she says, her favorite movie. Lars von Trier splits it in two: a lavish wedding-from-hell at an estate (Kirsten Dunst as Justine, unable to hold onto a single good moment), then the sisters waiting out a rogue planet named Melancholia on a collision course with Earth. Sean reads it as von Trier's most sensitive film because he doesn't make his lead a humiliated victim; both take the ending, shown up front in a Tristan und Isolde overture of living-painting tableaux, as his argument that the depressed person is the one seeing clearly. Now on Netflix and Tubi. Dunst won Best Actress at Cannes. Justine takes her name from the suffering heroine of Sade's 1787 novel; the cast runs deep, Charlotte Gainsbourg as the anxious sister Claire, Kiefer Sutherland as the know-it-all husband John, Alexander and Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt as the poisonous parents, Udo Kier as the ruined wedding planner, and Brady Corbet in a cameo.

Breaking the Waves 1996

Widely considered von Trier's masterpiece up to this point, and one of the films Sean recommends after. Grouped with the punishing English-language run where the heroine is a victim, the quality Melancholia breaks from.

Dancer in the Dark 2000

Cited for the same punishing streak, and for the misconduct accusations Björk later made about the shoot, which didn't visibly dent von Trier's career.

Dogville 2003

One of the hard-to-sit-through English-language films where you arrive at the same bleak verdict as Melancholia, but without the sensitivity.

Manderlay 2005

Named alongside Dogville as the punishing, endurance-test phase before Melancholia softened the approach.

The Idiots 1998

Sean's other von Trier recommendation, filed as the more fun one, for lack of a better word. A Dogme 95 film, the grainy handheld style Melancholia keeps the tools of but paints with.

Nymphomaniac 2013

The film after Melancholia, and evidence of the turn: still unpleasant across three-plus hours, but more gorgeous to look at.

The House That Jack Built 2018

Von Trier's 2018 serial-killer film with Matt Dillon, and his last released feature; he was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2022.

Funny Games 2007

Brady Corbet acted in Haneke's English-language remake; Sean uses it to place Corbet among the provocateur lineage (Haneke, Gaspar Noé, von Trier) he learned from.

Last Year at Marienbad 1961

Named as the kind of existentialist European film Melancholia pays homage to.

Up 2009

Amanda's comparison for the overture: the opposite of Up's first ten minutes, one showing the possibility of life and one its impossibility, both about accepting death.

The Kirsten Dunst filmographythe career this did and didn't reset

Bring It On 2000

The cute, bubbly blonde typecasting Melancholia was supposed to break; her first true adult role, per Sean.

Marie Antoinette 2006

The Sofia Coppola film Sean calls what if a historical figure were just a teenager. Like Melancholia, it leans on a nearly wordless Dunst performance.

Bachelorette 2012

A great, fun comedy she took right after Melancholia, cited as proof the following work wasn't bad, just curiously small.

The Two Faces of January 2014

Part of the confusing five-year stretch after Cannes where nothing quite of note landed.

Midnight Special 2016

A modest part, grouped with the smaller roles that followed the Best Actress win instead of the Cate Blanchett trajectory the press predicted.

Hidden Figures 2016

Another modest part in the post-Melancholia lull.

The Beguiled 2017

A good Coppola film, Sean's least favorite of the Sofia movies; the kind of you're-35-now part he thinks she'd earned.

Woodshock 2017

The Mulleavy sisters' film, filed with the odd, off-the-radar choices of those years.

The Power of the Dog 2021

The reset, per Sean, that re-established her as one of our great American actors deserving of these parts.

Civil War 2024

Named among the four films that finally arrived, the kind Sean expected right after Melancholia.

The Entertainment System Is Down 2026

The upcoming Ruben Östlund film, cited as her next; grouped with the belated arrival of major roles.

Roofman 2025

Also named among the four current films marking her return to the center.

Recommended if you like ‘Melancholia’ the hosts' end-of-episode picks

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Stalker 1979

Tarkovsky, a lighthouse for von Trier: science fiction smashed into the drama of despair without overexplaining.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Solaris 1972

The other Tarkovsky Sean names as deeply synchronized with Melancholia.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Breaking the Waves 1996

For von Trier fans, the film long considered his masterpiece before this one.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

The Idiots 1998

Another von Trier to think about alongside Melancholia, and the more fun of them.

Picked by Sean Fennessey

Rachel Getting Married 2008

One of the two wedding movies they each put down; the Jonathan Demme, about a difficult, depressed woman at a beautiful family event.

Picked by Amanda Dobbins

Margot at the Wedding 2007

Amanda's wedding-movie pick: the Noah Baumbach, a tough sit about a woman who is not getting married and is terribly depressed.

Picked by Amanda Dobbins

The Virgin Suicides 1999

Dunst in a different life phase working similar themes: depression, something unknowable, what she communicates while barely speaking.

Picked by Amanda Dobbins

Birth 2004

Jonathan Glazer's film, another lost-Kidman movie; not on the list, but one Amanda would happily slot in.

Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads

TV Fargo

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Not films Justine (Sade novel)Tristan und Isolde (Wagner opera)