50 Fun Facts About Midsommar

Who wrote and directed Midsommar?

It was his second feature after Hereditary, and like that film it was released by A24.

Who plays Dani, the grieving student at the centre of the film?

It was one of three breakout roles for her in 2019, alongside Fighting with My Family and Little Women.

Who plays Christian, Dani's increasingly distant boyfriend?

The Irish actor pushed for as much full-frontal nudity as possible in the final ritual, wanting to embrace the character's humiliation.

In which country is the festival set?

Most of it was actually shot in Hungary, partly because Sweden limits daily film shoots to eight hours.

What is the name of the commune that hosts the visitors?

Aster and his production designer visited the real Hälsingland region to develop the community's look and traditions.

How often does the Hårga's great midsummer festival take place?

Josh regards it as a once-in-a-lifetime chance for his thesis on European midsummer customs.

How many days does the festival last?

Nine is also the number of human sacrifices the commune must offer at the end.

Which Swedish friend invites the American students to his ancestral commune?

He was orphaned when his parents died in a fire, and tells Dani the commune became his new family.

How does Dani's sister Terri kill herself and their parents at the start of the film?

Terri has bipolar disorder, and the murder-suicide is the trauma the whole film grows out of.

What is the name of the cliff-jumping senicide ceremony the visitors witness on their first full day?

The term entered Swedish in the 17th century, inspired by an episode in the Old Icelandic Gautreks saga.

At what age does elder Siv say every Hårga member ends their life?

The mallet used to finish off the survivor was a replica of one in a Stockholm museum.

What does the surviving elder have done to him after the fall fails to kill him?

The commune members mimic his wails of pain first, a habit of shared feeling that returns during Dani's breakdown.

Who plays Mark, the crude friend who urinates on a sacred tree?

He is lured away by Inga afterwards, and his skinned face turns up on the man who kills Josh.

Who plays Josh, the student writing his thesis on European midsummer festivities?

He is bludgeoned to death after sneaking out to photograph the Hårga's sacred texts.

What is Mark doing when he inadvertently desecrates a Hårga ancestral tree?

It is the offence that gets him lured away by Inga and, eventually, skinned.

Which Hårga woman lures Mark away after his offence against the sacred tree?

Julia Ragnarsson plays her; Maja is the girl the elders have picked out for Christian.

Which British couple, invited by Pelle's commune-brother, also visit the commune?

Archie Madekwe and Ellora Torchia play them; both end up among the nine sacrifices.

What torture method has been used on Simon when Christian finds him barely alive in a barn?

The commune has told Connie he simply left for the train station without her.

What title does Dani win by outlasting everyone in the maypole dance?

The competition is inspired by the Hårgalåten myth, in which a devilish fiddler makes the young dance until they drop.

Which Hårga girl is Christian drugged into impregnating in the sex ritual?

Isabelle Grill, in her first feature role, plays her; the scene was filmed on the very last day of the shoot.

How many human sacrifices must the commune offer in the final ceremony?

Four are outsiders, four are commune members, and the May Queen chooses the last.

Christian is placed inside the body of which animal before the temple is set alight?

The costume Jack Reynor wore later sold at an A24 charity auction for $4,760.

Which two Hårga members volunteer to join the elders as sacrifices from within the commune?

The rest of the commune mimics Ulf's screams as the temple burns.

What does Dani do in the film's final shot as the temple collapses?

Aster has said the film begins with Dani losing a family and ends with her gaining one, 'in true fairy tale fashion'.

Which studio released Midsommar in the United States?

Aster's previous film Hereditary was the company's highest-grossing release worldwide at the time.

What genre had the producers who first approached Aster wanted him to make?

He initially turned it down, then found his way in by building it around a couple on the verge of a breakup.

Aster described the finished picture as 'a breakup movie dressed in the clothes of' what?

He also called it 'The Wizard of Oz for perverts' and cited Albert Brooks's Modern Romance as an inspiration.

In which country was most of the film shot?

Financial constraints were the main reason, along with Sweden's eight-hour daily limit on film shoots.

Which insects were a major nuisance on the summer 2018 shoot?

William Jackson Harper called the shoot 'arduous' because of the heat.

Under what stage name is composer Bobby Krlic better known?

Aster wrote the script while listening to his 2013 album Excavation and hired him before filming began.

Where was Dani's apartment, seen in the film's early scenes, actually filmed?

Other American-set scenes were shot in Utah before the production moved to Hungary.

How long is Aster's director's cut of the film?

A24 asked him to trim it for wide release, and the long version premiered at Lincoln Center in August 2019.

Roughly how many silk flowers make up Dani's May Queen dress?

Ariana Grande and Halsey both expressed interest before the Academy Museum reportedly bought it for $65,000.

How much did the mallet used in the cliff scene fetch at A24's 2020 charity auction?

The Midsommar lot raised over $100,000 in total for the FDNY Foundation during the pandemic.

What rating did the MPAA eventually give the film, after roughly six weeks of debate?

Cuts to the graphic nudity settled it; the harsher rating is considered box-office poison.

Approximately how much did Midsommar gross worldwide?

That was on a budget of about $8 million; audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a C+.

What grade did CinemaScore audiences give the film?

Critics were kinder: it holds an 83% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Which 1973 British film about a pagan island cult is the obvious ancestor of Midsommar?

Wikipedia's article on Midsommar lists it under 'See also' as its closest relative.

Which Guardian critic likened Dani's three male companions to the Tin Man, Lion and Scarecrow?

Aster himself had called the film 'The Wizard of Oz for perverts'.

What was Ari Aster's debut feature, released the year before Midsommar?

It premiered in the Midnight section at Sundance and made over $80 million.

Which surrealist comedy-drama did Aster make after Midsommar, in 2023?

He had teased it in 2020 as a four-hour 'nightmare comedy'; it failed to recoup its budget.

What is the name of Aster's production company, co-founded with producer Lars Knudsen in 2019?

B-Reel Films is the Swedish company that co-produced Midsommar with it.

Which Swedish actor, famous as Tadzio in Death in Venice, plays the elder Dan?

A 2021 documentary about his life was titled The Most Beautiful Boy in the World.

In the Hårgalåten legend, what gives away the mysterious fiddler's demonic nature?

The youths who danced to his tune could not stop, and dropped dead of exhaustion.

For which other 2019 film did the actress who plays Dani receive her Academy Award nomination?

She played Amy March from age 12 into adulthood in Greta Gerwig's adaptation.

What is Dani's surname?

Critics singled out Pugh's portrayal, with Vulture calling it 'amazingly vivid'.

Which institution reportedly bought Dani's May Queen dress at A24's 2020 charity auction?

It reportedly paid $65,000 after Ariana Grande and Halsey both expressed interest; proceeds went to COVID-19 relief for firefighters.

Which spiritual movement did Ari Aster say particularly inspired the Hårga?

He and production designer Henrik Svensson also toured Hälsingland's centuries-old painted farmhouses to shape the commune's look.

What was Midsommar's estimated production budget?

It debuted to $10.9 million in North America, sixth at the box office, and went on to gross $48 million worldwide.

Where did Ari Aster's 171-minute director's cut have its world premiere in August 2019?

A24 had asked Aster to trim the film for wide release; the long cut later became an Apple TV exclusive that September.