Struggling to survive in post-WWI Copenhagen, a newly unemployed and pregnant young woman is taken in by a charismatic elder to help run an underground adoption agency. The two form an unexpected bond, until a sudden discovery changes everything.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.9/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.90/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 82
TMDB: 7.6/10
Director
Magnus von Horn
Production
Lava Films, Nordisk Film Sweden, EC1 Łódź, Film i Väst, Creative Alliance, Dolnośląskie Centrum Filmowe
Cast
Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, Besir Zeciri, Joachim Fjelstrup, Tessa Hoder, Ava Knox Martin, Ari Alexander, Søren Sætter-Lassen, Magnus von Horn, Anna Terpiłowska, Dan Jakobsen, Anna Tulestedt, Benedikte Hansen, Monika Kępka, Maciej Berezowski, Nela Łapka, Robert Trempski, Slawomir Macias, Gabriel Zubowski, Agnieszka Przyborowska-Mitrosz
Where to watch
MUBI
Curator Review
Verdict
A punishing, beautifully controlled historical drama that uses its bleakness with purpose. It’s emotionally brutal, visually precise, and likely to linger with viewers who can handle severe subject matter and moral dread.
Best for
Viewers drawn to bleak but formally elegant period dramas
Fans of psychological intensity and slow-building dread
Audiences interested in women’s history, reproductive politics, and social cruelty
People who appreciate arthouse cinema that is emotionally uncompromising
Skip if
You want a hopeful or uplifting story
You’re sensitive to distressing themes involving pregnancy, adoption, and bodily harm
You prefer fast-paced plotting or conventional genre payoffs
You don’t enjoy severe, oppressive films that are meant to be endured
Overview
The Girl with the Needle is a grim, exacting descent into postwar desperation, where survival is never clean and compassion is always at risk of becoming another form of exploitation. It plays like a historical nightmare, but one grounded in social reality rather than shock for its own sake.
Worth noting
What makes it stand out is the discipline of the filmmaking: the imagery is stark and haunting, the tension accumulates with real precision, and the film never loses sight of the human cost at its center. Even at its most punishing, it feels carefully composed rather than merely cruel.
Bottom line
This is not an easy watch, and it does not want to be. But for viewers who value austere, emotionally devastating cinema, it’s the kind of film that leaves a mark long after it ends.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Cacey (5★) · 7710 likes
Ah yes, my favorite horror subgenre: existing as a woman during 99% of human history
Grimbo (4★) · 3543 likes
Oh so the reason why she is called The Girl With The Needle is the least fucked up thing in this movie? OK!
Karsten (4★) · 2068 likes
bleak as it gets and feels like it’s punching you in the face most of the time but still never comes across overly cynical. score put me in a trance 🌀
Quintin (3.5★) · 1652 likes
The Girl with the Needle is a giant PSA to never date a man that still lives with his mother.