Warning: Contains major spoilers for The Northman.
Robert Eggers' latest offering, The Northman has garnered a strong critical reception, but how does it compare to the director's other movies? With three feature films now under his belt, the American auteur has firmly established himself as one of the industry's top filmmakers. Eggers' debut, The Witch, and subsequent movie, The Lighthouse, demonstrated Eggers' singular ability to create striking visuals and tell unique stories that differentiate his work from more typical, formulaic modern films.
Eggers' third movie, The Northman, has allowed Eggers to tell a much grander story compared to his first two films, thanks to a larger production budget. Alongside a bevy of acting talent, The Northman also includes previous Eggers collaborators Anya Taylor-Joy and Willem Dafoe, returning from The Witch and The Lighthouse, respectively. Yet familiar actors are not the only common threads across Eggers' three movies to date.
Eggers' critically celebrated movies feature elements of horror and draw their inspiration from various elements of mythology and lore. Eggers likes to use animals symbolically, with wolves playing a prominent role in The Northman, just as goats took on an ethereal quality in The Witch. His films can be polarizing though. Given Eggers' preference for no exposition, it isn't always easy to keep up with what is real and fantasy in his movies, but the director's distinctive style and otherworldly tone have established Eggers as one of cinema's most exciting writers and directors. Here's the ranking of Robert Egger's movies from worst to best.
3. The Witch (2015)
By no means is The Witch a bad movie despite its placement here. Set in the 1600s, Eggers' debut is a dark tale that focuses on a Puritan family that has been banished from their New England town. When they set up an isolated new life for themselves next to a mysterious forest, strange things begin to happen as William (Ralph Ineson), and his kin finds their faith staunchly tested. Given the time that the A24-produced horror is set, William's family naturally suspects that their eldest daughter, Thomasin, is a witch who is in cahoots with the Devil.
However, despite a number of harrowing scenes, The Witch isn't a horror that relies on jump scares. Rather, Eggers' slow-burner combines an eerie score with religious imagery to build an uncomfortable atmosphere. That's not to say there are no scares in The Witch, though, with Black Phillip's takedown of Thomasin's father and the cackling, naked witch both terrifying moments. Thomasin's decision to turn her back on her religion and join the witches' coven after witnessing her God-loving family die cement the pervading sense of dread throughout The Witch, given her prayers are left answered.
The Witch was easily one of the best horrors of the 2010s, so to describe it as Eggers' "worst" film is more than a little harsh. Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, and the debuting Anya Taylor-Joy all give authentic and believable performances, and the story is given time to build a sense of dread that is satisfyingly paid off. That said, Eggers' later movies show a clear improvement in his ability as a cinematographer.
2. The Lighthouse (2019)
The Lighthouse is a mind-bending, genre-blending thriller that explores depravity and loneliness in equal measure. Eggers' character-based film, set in the 1890s, focuses on a pair of lighthouse keepers whose sanity slips away after a storm leaves them stranded on a remote island at sea. The excellent duo of Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are the only faces on-screen for almost the entire movie, which gives The Lighthouse an intensely insular feeling. However, where The Lighthouse differs from The Witch is that it also has spots of comedy, like Thomas Wake's intermittent farts, which break up the film's bleakness without detracting from the intensifying dread of both lighthouse keepers' situation.
Much like The Witch, though, mythology plays a big part in Eggers' second movie, but he takes it a step further in The Lighthouse. The storyline is heavily influenced by the Greek tale of Prometheus, sailor's superstitions, and the sirens of The Odyssey. These fantastical elements, like the creepy mermaid on the scrimshaw, emphasize the blurred lines between reality and fantasy that highlight the lighthouse keepers' descent into darkness.
In this way, the production and aesthetic of Eggers' The Lighthouse are better than any other Eggers movie to date. The Northman is visually spectacular, but The Lighthouse's monochrome palette and almost square aspect ratio set it apart from other films. The movie seems like it was produced in the century it is set, and its unique look adds to the claustrophobic, desperate situation that the two stewards find themselves in - making Eggers' The Lighthouse a decidedly unique spectacle in modern cinema.
1. The Northman (2022)
While all three of his films are quality affairs, Robert Eggers' newest movie is also his best. The Northman allows the director to use his talents on a much greater scale than in his first outings, and Eggers handles the transition well and uses the extra funds to put on an impressive spectacle backed by a strong storyline. The Northman is based on the Scandinavian legend of Amleth that inspired the likes of Hamlet, meaning many parts of Eggers' bold tale feels surprisingly familiar despite The Northman being an original production. Much of the movie follows Amleth as he waits to enact his revenge on Fjölnir, his uncle who murdered his father. The Northman arguably has the best ending of all Eggers' films with a bittersweet and brutal conclusion, although The Lighthouse's gruesome seagull ending comes close.
A familiar criticism faced by Eggers is that the fantasy scenes in The Northman, such as the Valkyrie visions, translate as perplexing. But by now, it's clear that Eggers will not change his artistic vision and that these moments are an integral part of his movies. His next film will likely be his long-planned remake of the gothic horror movie classic Nosferatu, where his love of mythology and fantasy will surely continue. For now, though, The Northman just about holds the top spot in the ranking of Robert Eggers' movies.