U.S. Release Date for Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac Announced

Magnolia Pictures announced today the American release dates for notorious auteur Lars von Trier’s hotly anticipated and sexually explicit new film, Nymphomaniac.

Though rumors have been swirling as of late about the potential release of a five-hour cut of the film that includes hardcore sex—some seem to think von Trier will unleash the unedited version in all its glory at Cannes next year—the U.S. release will be split into two full-length films clocking in at two hours apiece.

Nymphomaniac: Part One, chronicling the story of Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the titular nymphomaniac who is discovered beaten in an alleyway by an older bachelor named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) and recounts her salacious story from adolescence through young-adulthood, will open in theaters on March 21, 2014 and debut on VOD fifteen days earlier on March 6, 2014. Nymphomaniac: Part Two, which brings us up to Joe’s prurient present, will then open theatrically on April 18, 2013 and on VOD similarly earlier on April 3, 2014.

Aside from stars Gainsbourg and Skarsgård, the already-controversial films also include Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Connie Nielsen, Udo Kier, Jamie Bell, Willem Dafoe, Mia Goth and Jean-Marc Barr.

I was personally disturbed in the best way possible by von Trier’s Antichrist—which, let’s face it, was the point—but I found Melancholia to be equally depressing yet one of my favorite films of 2011. With Nymphomaniac it seems like he’s definitely going for more of the shock-and-awe tactics he used in the former, but hopefully Gainsbourg and the film’s ensemble can give some humanity to all the depravity.