Björk performing at Le Cirque en Chantier, Paris, during her Biophilia tour (2013)
Music videos
67
Video albums
21
Feature films
4
Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk has released 67 music videos (including 3 as a featured artist), 6 concert tour videos, 6 music video compilations, 3 television performance video albums, 4 documentary videos and 2 video albums box sets. She also appeared in 4 feature films as an actress and has made several television appearances and cameos, in addition to providing music and score to multiple movies. In 1992, Björk left her previous band, the Sugarcubes, and started her solo career with the release of her album Debut. Her first music video taken from the album was "Human Behaviour", directed by French director Michel Gondry, with whom she started a career-spanning collaboration. The video, followed by "Big Time Sensuality", "Army of Me", "It's Oh So Quiet", the latter two from her second studio album Post (1995), received heavy airplay on MTV channels and popularised her image. Starting with the videos taken from Homogenic (1997), as stated in a retrospective review from Philip Sherburne, her videos became "crucial" to build the world of her albums.[1] She also started to experiment with CGI elements, as shown by videos like "Jóga" or "Hunter".[2] "All Is Full of Love", directed by Chris Cunningham, received general acclaim from critics, went on to win two MTV Video Music Awards and was included in MoMA permanent collection.[3]
In 1999, the singer was approached by Danish director Lars von Trier to star in his movie Dancer in the Dark (2000). It was Björk's second feature film lead appearance, having previously starred in the Icelandic television movie, Glerbrot (1987), and Nietzchka Keene's The Juniper Tree (1990). For her performance in Dancer in the Dark, Björk received critical acclaim, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and one Academy Award, and won the Best Actress Award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. For her 2001 album Vespertine, Björk wanted to convey a more minimalistic and intimate image in her videos, resulting in videos like "Pagan Poetry" and "Cocoon", which were banned from prime-time MTV airplay. In 2003, Björk started a collaboration with collective LynnFox, which provided several visual that served as backdrops for her Greatest Hits tour and also the video for "Oceania", which was projected during her 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony performance. In 2005, Björk starred as the female lead actress in Matthew Barney's Drawing Restraint 9, for which she also composed the soundtrack. Björk's music video for "Wanderlust", directed by Encyclopedia Pictura, received attention for being one of the first 3D music video.
Björk's 2011 multimedia project Biophilia, included her seventh studio album, a world tour, an app and a series of educational workshops. To document the album's creation and themes, Björk collaborated with BritishNatural historianDavid Attenborough, and filmed the documentary When Björk Met Attenborough, narrated by Tilda Swinton. The tour's final show at Alexandra Palace in London was premiered as a concert film during 2014 Tribeca Film Festival. Coinciding with the release of Vulnicura (2015), Björk was honored by the MoMa with an artist retrospective, for which she was commissioned a music video for her song "Black Lake". Subsequently, the singer started to experiment with virtual reality videos, resulting in work like "Stonemilker", "Notget" and "Quicksand", which was premiered as the first YouTube virtual reality live stream. All these videos were part of the Björk Digital exhibition, which premiered at Carriageworks, Sydney in 2016, and were later included in the Vulnicura VR album, which was firstly released on Steam in September 2019.[4] Björk's recent videos continue to be received favorably, with her 2017 video for "The Gate" being named the best music video of 2017 by Pitchfork.[5]
Björk sings various parts of the song while in a forest and being chased by an animated stuffed bear. The video is a loose take on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
The video portrays Björk in a kitchen, fondling and cooking eggs. At one point, she is seen caressing a bearded dragon. The video was inspired by the book Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille.
Shot in black and white and features Björk dancing on the back of a moving truck slowly driving through New York City in the middle of the day. The video uses film effects like slow motion and fast motion.
The video seemingly takes place in a padded room of a mental institute. Björk is portrayed singing the song in a white dress resembling an open straitjacket with pieces of hair surrounding her. Norman Reedus appears in the video as an inmate of the psychiatric ward.
In the video, Björk drives a gigantic truck and then heads to a gorilla dentist, who tries to remove and steal a diamond hidden in her mouth. The video faced backlash for the inclusion of Björk bombing an art museum at the end of the video, in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing.
The black-and-white video portrays various surreal scenes, including a long-haired Björk playing a water-powered piano. Another scene shows various airplanes being formed inside light bulbs which sprout from the ground, and the end features Björk juxtaposed with a waterfall.
Based on Jacques Demy's 1964 film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, it features everything in slow motion as Björk sings the verses; during the riotous chorus, everything returns to regular speed and everyone near her dances along. The visual went on to become one of her most recognised music videos and won the award for Best Choreography at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards.
The video follows Björk as she is shown performing the song in various rooms. In each location she is dressed in a different way and interacts with different objects.
A partly animated video that features a red-haired Björk dancing and interacting with several other characters, which resemble the ones from The Ren & Stimpy Show. At points, a live version of Björk is mixed in the footage. Fred Flintstone makes a cameo as a shampoo bottle.
The video shows different Icelandic terrains and landscapes with Björk appearing only in the beginning and towards the end. With the aid of CGI, earthquakes begin to separate and shift the chunks of land along fault lines. The video ends with a computerised image of an island floating inside Björk's chest.
It features Björk as "Bachelorette", a woman who finds a book titled My Story buried in her garden that begins to write itself. She takes the book to a publishing house. The book becomes incredibly popular and is turned into a musical, featuring Bachelorette as herself. When the book becomes unpopular, the setting, which utilises the Droste effect to multiply the space, devolves into Bachelorette's garden, where the book finds its resting place once again.
A bald Björk passionately sings looking into the camera; as she shakes and moves her head, she begins to morph into a polar bear. Towards the end of the video, she completely transforms into the "techno-bear", before returning to her original state and the image once again fading out to white.
Features Björk floating on a raft on a river in the jungle; her scenes are intercut with footage of snakes, crocodiles, and other animals, with Björk playing with them. A first version of the video, directed by Paul White, was previously scrapped.
In the critically lauded video, an ethereal, white room is shown, where a robot with Björk's features lies in a fetal position. As the room lights up, two mechanical arms begin to assemble the robot. The robot looks up to see another robotic Björk as the machines stop the assembly. It smiles and extends its hand to the sitting robot, joining in the song. The robots passionately kiss and embrace while the machines assemble their backs and light comes and goes. The video won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Visual Effects and Breakthrough Video.
An interactive "webeo" (a web animation) for an MTV promotion. Björk appears with her face painted and the viewer could change the scenes and special effects by clicking on the video. The main version of the video (2nd) is an excerpt from the film Dancer in the Dark in which Björk, Peter Stormare and others sing the song on a train.
The video features highly blurry and stylised images of explicit sex, including fellatio and ejaculation, and images of large needles sewing pearls to skin. The second half of the video features Björk in a dress designed by Alexander McQueen, which covers only the lower portion of her body. The video ends with a shot of a corset piercing.
The video begins with many apparently nude Björks singing. Throughout the video, red threads emerge from her nipples and circulate between her breasts and nose, finally enveloping her in a cocoon.
Shot in night-vision while Björk was pregnant, it features the singer in a forest, as various animals and plants are shot using perspective, which makes them appear larger than the singer.
Created as a backdrop for Björk's Greatest Hits tour. The video depicts the beginning of life on a microscopic level. At the end, a baby inside of a womb is shown.
Created as a backdrop for Björk's Greatest Hits tour. It shows Icelandic actor Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson, naked and furiously simulating masturbation until his head explodes.
Björk is depicted as "Mother Oceania", with her face adorned with crystals. The camera pans down to show dark and deep water, with Björk appearing out of the dark background, singing and covered with sparkling jewels. Images of jellyfish swim around and away from Björk, carried by the currents, which move in time with the song. A version of the video was projected during Björk's performance at 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony.
In the video, Björk wears a dress made of bells, by Alexander McQueen, and performs the song while accompanied by a group of children, also wearing outfits adorned with bells. The version of the song featured in the video is the "Bell Choir Mix".
The video portrays Björk and her cat husband, seemingly unhappy, as she escapes to the city to party in a bar, and eventually getting drunk and hurting herself before spending the night out in a field. The next morning, her husband goes to find her and they reconcile.
In the video, Björk represents an earth goddess which gives birth to a convulsing person. The entity yells and writhes around the singer before returning inside of her. It was premiered during Gabríela Friðriksdóttir's exposition at the Venice Biennale in 2005, as one of the three pieces from the artist's Versations Tetralogia.
The video portrays Björk's face singing the song in a graphic-rendered sky while various silhouettes of tribes are shown marching, dancing, running and shooting various weapons.
In March 2007, Björk launched the Innocence video contest, in which amateur directors could send their own interpretation of the song in form of a music video. The winning video features Björk's avatar, as shown on the Volta album cover, singing the song as various entities surround her. Other videos sent for the competition were included in the Voltaïc box set.
Portrays Björk singing the song on a megaphone linked to various people in front of her. As they all jump, a platform elevates and activates a roll of paper that is sprayed and painted upon by other people.
One of the first music video shot in stereoscopic 3D. It shows Björk, in an ancient Mongolian tribal costume, amongst a group of yaks. Throughout the video, a clay demon, dubbed the "painbody" by the directors, comes out of her backpack and tries to attack her. Eventually, they both fall from a waterfall and ends in the hands of an entity that was following them before.
Christoph Jantos, Masahiro Mogari and Marçal Cuberta Junca
The video includes three different versions, each edited by a runner-up of the "Innocence" video contest. They all show Björk and Anohni singing the song, and in the last part of the video their facial features fuse together.
Ólöf Arnalds sings the song in Iceland's Þingvellir National Park, at points performing choreography with a male partner. Björk does not appear in the video. It was filmed on Super 8.
Portrays Björk as a sort of moon deity, while various crystals form and are subsequently destroyed on a planet. Various reflections of the singer dancing appear on glass spheres.
A video shot during the photoshoot for the Biophilia album cover, features the singer performing the song in a dress by Iris van Herpen and seemingly executing the song melody on a harp belt. Various graphics are juxtaposed with the video, including various lunar phases. The graphics were designed by M/M Paris for the Biophilia app.
An animated video illustrating the molecular composition of the human body, starting from the blood tissue and showing the DNA as various proteins are sent to the nucleus. At one point in the video a reproduction of Björk's face, made from various proteins, appears among the DNA strings.
Commissioned and premiered at the MOCA in Los Angeles, portrays Björk on a sand bed, while various rocks revolve around her. At the end of the video, two rocks unite to form a volcano, whose shapes resemble Björk's facial features. One shot of the video was used as the Bastards album cover.
The video was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art, to be included in the 2015 Björk exhibition. The visuals were created to be part of a sound installation, in which it was shown on two opposite screens. Because of this, multiple versions of the video exist. One version features only the first verse of the song and shows Björk, naked among rocks, while blue fluid comes out of her. The video then portrays the singer as she sings barefoot in a cave. It concludes with Björk singing the song in a field, while her dress dissolves.
Shot during the photoshoot for the Vulnicura album cover, it portrays Björk dancing and showing expressions of anger and happiness. At one point, the singer appears with bronze skin, while purple lights surround her.
The video, used as a promotion for the release of the physical version of Vulnicura, features a shortened version of the song and shows an avatar of Björk, laid on a rock and sewing a wound on her chest. The avatar also features on the deluxe edition cover of Vulnicura.
A virtual reality video which portrays Björk singing on a beach and in a field. As the song progresses, Björk multiplies and surrounds the viewer. The video was released as an app, which features a string-laden version of the song.
Shot partially in a mock-up of the singer's mouth, also contains parts in which Björk is shown dancing in a white dress. A virtual reality version of the video premiered at the Björk Digital exhibition.
The first version of the video is a virtual reality video which shows an avatar of Björk singing while surrounded by various strings and lights, eventually growing larger. A work-in-progress version of the video premiered at the Björk Digital exhibition in Sydney, while the completed version later won the 2017 Cannes Lion for Digital Craft.
Shot at the Miraikan museum in Tokyo as the first virtual reality live stream on YouTube, it was later premiered at the Björk Digital exhibition in London. The virtual reality video features Björk singing while wearing a mask, created by Neri Oxman, which reproduces her nervous system, while various light effects are added on her.
Premiered at the Björk Digital exhibition in Montreal, it is a virtual reality interactive video in which the viewer can help an avatar of Björk as she sews back her wound.
This second visual shows Björk, dressed to resemble a moth, as she sings the song and transforms. The first half of the video is shot in black and white, while during the transformation phase the setting acquires colour.
The video begins with a shot of Björk playing the flute on the edge of a cliff, while several objects levitate nearby. The second part of the video portrays Björk passing a glowing orb to an "all-crystal being". A glow in her chest projects three other figures that start dancing around her. One of them embraces with Björk until the song ends. The video debuted on Nowness. Björk's dress was designed by Gucci and took over 800 hours to craft.
Set on a "pink-hued planet", Björk alternatively plays the flute while surrounded by the flute septet Viibra and colourful animals. The video debuted during the Kimono Roboto exhibition in Tokyo's Omotesando Hills.
In the video's first sequence, Björk is in a glowing cocoon nestled next to a giant mouth with two tongues. She is simultaneously singing from her own mouth inside the cocoon and opening her mouth outside it. She then emerges as a moth. Arca makes an appearance in the video. It debuted on WeTransfer alongside a special behind-the-scenes video titled Work in Progress: Björk & Jesse Kanda.
The video portrays Björk's face superimposed with a colourful mass, whose features resemble flowers and mountains. The figure sprouts petals and fronds as it twists and billows through the air. The visual debuted as the backdrop of the song during the Cornucopia residency show at The Shed in New York City.
Based on "the conversations between our inner optimist and pessimist", it features two opposite versions of Björk's face blooming and collapsing in on themselves. The visual debuted as the backdrop of the song during the Cornucopia residency show at The Shed in New York City.
Madison Bloom and Jazz Monroe of Pitchfork described the video as a "party at a mushoom rave" in a "fungal underworld, where a masked Björk, a bass clarinet sextet, and Gabber Modus Operandi's DJ Kasimyn gear up for a rave showdown".
In the video, Björk wears two custom dresses designed by Gucci's then creative director Alessandro Michele, constructed from spirals of pleated organza, interspersed with scenes of an avatar of Björk made from 3D scanning as she moves between different states of mind.
The video depicts a ritual funeral for Björk's late mother Hildur Rúna Hauksdóttir. Björk leads a group of masked musicians and dancers through the backdrop of a mountain landscape.
Björk performs the song alone at the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland. The video is shot by showing the singer through a blurred oval section. Another shortened version of the video, featuring the singer performing the song acoustically was also released.
"Woe (I See It From Your Side)" (Björk Remix) Shygirl featuring Björk
2023
Sam Ibram
The video shot in Tokyo sees Shygirl move through a series of montages which gradually becomes more intense and hallucinatory. Björk does not appear in the video.
The video sees the singer perform alongside clarinet sextet Murmuri and Kasimyn of Gabber Modus Operandi, against an unfolding backdrop of glistening spores that multiply, grow, and pulsate as the track's intensity reaches its peak.
The video is illustrated with a moving animation of paintings by Friðriksdóttir. Otherworldly animals float around the screen, exploring the natural environment. The video was premiered at the Cornucopia tour stop at the Altice Arena in Lisbon.
In the video, two AI-generated deepfake versions of the singers train together – exploring themes of female rage. In the end, the two engage in a choreographed fight sequence with swords, coming together to fight a bigger enemy.
Contains the first livelong-form video by Björk. The release documents a concert by the artist during the Debut tour. Björk performs ten songs from the album; an interview with the singer is interspersed throughout the setlist.
It contains a live performance by Björk on the Vespertine world tour, recorded at the Royal Opera House in London on 7 December 2001. It was one of the last of the concerts performed on that tour. With this concert Björk had become the first ever contemporary pop artist to perform at the venue. It also includes a short behind the scenes documentary which would partly be used on Minuscule.
Directors: Russell Thomas (live in Paris) · Hreinn Beck (live in Reykjavík)
Released: 23 June 2009
Label: One Little Indian Records
Format: DVD
It includes two performances, one recorded at the Olympia concert hall in Paris, from the last leg of the Volta tour in 2008. The other one is a special acoustic showcase that took place at Langholtskirkja, Reykjavík, after the end of the tour. Included in Voltaïc, it received a promotional standalone release.
The film features Björk performing tracks from her Biophilia tour at Alexandra Palace in London. It had a theatrical premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 26 April 2014 with screenings across the world throughout the same year.
A reissue of the Volumen compilation which includes all of the singer's videos up until "It's in Our Hands". It also includes "Nature Is Ancient" visual, which was used to promote the Family Tree box set.
It includes videos for songs from Medúlla. A total of five music videos are included. A documentary about the making of the "Triumph of a Heart" music video is also included as a bonus feature.
It features videos for songs from Volta. It also includes making-of videos for "Declare Independence" and "Wanderlust" and 9 runner-up visuals from the "Innocence" Video Contest. Included in Voltaïc, it received a promotional standalone release.
It includes all the Vulnicura videos shot in VR technology. Out of these, only "Stonemilker" was already released on YouTube, while "Lionsong", "Black Lake", "Notget" and "Mouth Mantra" were available in 2D, with "Family" and "Quicksand" receiving their first public release. "History of Touches" and "Atom Dance", the only two songs which did not receive a video format, are included as a visual score by Stephen Malinowski. The audio included in the videos is recorded in an ambisonicssurround sound format.
It features two complete MTV performances: the first show was recorded on MTV Unplugged in 1994 during the promotion of Debut and the second show was recorded on MTV Live in 1998 for the promotion of Homogenic.
It contains a documentary offering a behind-the-scenes look at Björk and her touring entourage for the 2001 Vespertine world tour. It includes interviews with harpist Zeena Parkins, the Inuit choir from Greenland, electronic duo Matmos, and an ongoing conversation with Björk herself about her recordings and her tours. The documentary is interspersed with live footage of songs from the tour shot by Ragnheidur Gestsdóttir.
It contains a 45-minute film about the making of Medúlla. It features clips of the studio performances by Dokaka, Shlomo, Rahzel and Mike Patton that formed the beats for many of the songs on the album. The title of the video is the actual definition of the word "Medúlla".
Contains a 2013 documentary television film directed by Louise Hooper. Partly filmed at the Natural History Museum in London, the documentary features an encounter between Björk and English broadcaster and naturalistDavid Attenborough. They discuss the nature of music and the intersection between music, nature and technology. It also follows the singer as she prepares for her Biophilia tour, along with rehearsal and studio recording.