Box office The Northman grossed $34.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $35.4 million in other territories – for a worldwide total of $69.6 million It made $5 million on its first day, including $1.4 million from Thursday night previews. The film went on to debut to $12.3 million in its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office.
Deadline Hollywood noted that
The Northman and
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent were targeting the same demographic, which impeded their debuts. The film earned $6.4 million in its second weekend, finishing fourth; $2.9 million in its third weekend, finishing sixth; $1.75 million in its fourth weekend, finishing seventh; and $1.1 million in its fifth weekend, finishing 10th. It dropped out of the box office top 10 in its sixth weekend with $249,660. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the film earned $3.4 million from 15 international markets in its opening weekend. It made $6.3 million in its second weekend after expanding to 41 markets, $4.5 million in its third weekend, $2.2 million in its fourth, $2.5 million in its fifth, $2.9 million in its sixth, and $1.4 million in its seventh.
Home media performance Eggers commented on the film's underwhelming box office, stating that "[The film] met the expectations of a bad marketplace ... Am I disappointed that, three to four weeks in, we're on VOD because that's the way things are done in the post-COVID world? Yeah. But it's doing great on VOD, so there you go." In its debut weekend on
PVOD in the U.S., the film was the top-rented title on
iTunes, third on
Vudu and fourth on
Google Play, making about the same amount of revenue as
The Bad Guys and
The Lost City, despite grossing much less than both in theaters.
IndieWire wrote that "
The Northman looks like the type of film that, even with lower theatrical returns, is greatly elevated by that exposure." The following week, it finished third on the iTunes and Vudu charts, and fifth on Google Play. In its debut week on the
DVD/
Blu-ray market, the film debuted at the No. 1 spot on both the NPD VideoScan First Alert chart (which tracks combined DVD and Blu-ray disc unit sales) and the Blu-ray disc sales chart for the week ending June 11, 2022. On September 28, 2023,
Deadline Hollywood reported the film "approached breakeven thanks to overindexing on Premium VOD". Focus Features' president of production and acquisitions, Kiska Higgs, also stated that the film was "OK for us in the end", though she noted that costs were shared by New Regency, and Focus Features' wasn't "front and center on production of [the film]".
Metacritic assigned the film a
weighted average score of 82 out of 100 based on sixty critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by
CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while
PostTrak gave it a 75% positive score (with an average 3.5 out of five stars), with 56% saying they would definitely recommend it.
The Guardian's
Peter Bradshaw gave a five out of five score, praising the film's nihilistic tone and performances by the cast, stating, "It's entirely outrageous, with some epic visions of the flaring cosmos. I couldn't look away."
Digital Spy's Gabriella Geisinger also gave a five out of five score, praising Eggers's visionary direction and the film's grisly and surreal atmosphere and claiming, "The world created in
The Northman is so totally absorbing".
IndieWire's David Ehrlich called the film "primal, sinewy, gnarly-as-fuck," "grab-you-by-the-throat intense" and "never dull."
Total Films Matt Maytum commented that the film is a "truly distinctive, unmissable epic" in his review, ultimately giving it a five out of five stars.
The Independents Clarrise Loughrey gave it five out of five stars, and stated in her review that the film was a "beautiful risk".
RogerEbert.coms Robert Daniels gave it three out of four, and praised the direction, cinematography and cast performances, but found that the film "often stumbles when it searches for profundity."
The Austin Chronicles Richard Whittaker called the film an "extraordinary feat of cinema," commending the direction.
The New York Timess
A.O. Scott praised the world-building and cinematography, writing, "Eggers's accomplishment lies in his fastidious, fanatical rendering of that world, down to its bed linens and cooking utensils."
The New Yorker's
Richard Brody found that the film "offers no
synesthesia, no evocation of any sense beside vision" and criticized Eggers's direction, ultimately concluding, "
The Northman merely serves up its raw material both half-baked and overcooked."''
Rolling Stone'''s K. Austin Collins wrote that "It's an oft-stunning visual feast," but added, "It is also an instructive example of how the most visionary intentions can't always enliven an otherwise rote story." Christopher Howse in
The Spectator commends the "great store" Eggers sets "by material authenticity". Howse was less fond of the persistent "slittings, maimings and disembowellings". "Violence in the foreground is like flak concealing what lies behind; perhaps it should have been even longer with less action", is his overall critical assessment. In December 2024,
Collider ranked the film at number 7 on its list of the "10 Best Fantasy Movies of the 2020s," with Robert Lee III writing that it is "a perfect example of how fantasy movies do not always have to be colorful and family-friendly in their execution, being a brutal and striking R-rated fantasy film filled with violence and bloodshed at every corner. Its violence serves a greater purpose than simply being eye-candy, however, as it helps create a sense of realism for this folk tale adventure, treating Amleth's story as a sort of powerful mythos to be passed down across generations of Viking warriors."
Accolades ==Notes==