Items18The creator’s order
  1. 1Man on the Roof (1976)Man on the Roof (1976) 7.2/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 1, 1976The ancestor of everything else here. Bo Widerberg's Martin Beck film opens with a police inspector murdered in his hospital bed, and the investigation turns up complaints of misconduct against the dead man, so the real question becomes who in Stockholm had reason to hate a policeman. Carl-Gustaf…0
  2. 2Nightwatch (1994)Nightwatch (1994) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 25, 1994Less a police procedural than a test of nerve. A law student takes a night watchman's job at a mortuary to pay for his studies and slowly finds himself implicated in a serial murder case. Ole Bornedal gets most of his dread from empty corridors, humming lights and cold rooms, and lets the silence…0
  3. 3The Hunters (1996)The Hunters (1996) 7.0/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 2, 1996For anyone who liked the far-north stretches of the TV shows, this is the film to find. Rolf Lassgård plays a Stockholm policeman who returns to Norrbotten after his father's death and picks up a long-running reindeer-poaching case, only to discover that his own brother is involved. Kjell Sundvall…0
  4. 4Pusher (1996)Pusher (1996) 7.3/10 on IMDbReleased Aug 30, 1996The gangland side of Nordic crime, with no detective in sight. Nicolas Winding Refn's debut follows Frank, a Copenhagen drug pusher whose botched deal leaves him owing a ruthless dealer, and the film tightens around him as his options run out. Shot handheld and close, it feels like being trapped…0
  5. 5Insomnia (1997)Insomnia (1997) 7.2/10 on IMDbReleased Mar 14, 1997The purest dose of Nordic noir mood on film. Stellan Skarsgård plays a detective sent to Tromsø, above the Arctic Circle, to work a murder case under a sun that never sets. When the arrest goes wrong and he shoots his own partner by mistake, he blames the suspect and starts covering his…0
  6. 6Jar City (2006)Jar City (2006) 6.8/10 on IMDbReleased Oct 20, 2006Iceland's way in, and one of the bleakest films here. Ingvar E. Sigurðsson plays Erlendur, a worn-out police detective whose murder case opens a trail of long-buried secrets and small-town corruption, while his troubled daughter Eva Lind drifts in and out of his life. Baltasar Kormákur fills the…0
  7. 7Lights in the Dusk (2006)Lights in the Dusk (2006) 6.8/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 3, 2006The odd one out, and worth it. Aki Kaurismäki's deadpan noir follows Koistinen, a lonely night security guard at a luxury Helsinki shopping mall, who falls for an icy blonde without realizing she is setting him up for her criminal boyfriend. There is no investigation and very little dialogue; the…0
  8. 8The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased Feb 27, 2009The best-known film on the list, and the right version to watch. Niels Arden Oplev's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel pairs Michael Nyqvist's disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist with Noomi Rapace's hacker Lisbeth Salander on a decades-old disappearance inside a wealthy industrial…0
  9. 9Easy Money (2010)Easy Money (2010) 6.7/10 on IMDbReleased Jan 15, 2010Stockholm's underworld seen from three angles. Joel Kinnaman plays JW, a young man who starts running drugs to keep up a double life among the rich, and his story collides with Jorge, a fugitive hunted by both the police and the Serbian mafia, and Mrado, the enforcer sent after him. Daniel…0
  10. 10Headhunters (2011)Headhunters (2011) 7.5/10 on IMDbReleased Aug 26, 2011The one to put on for friends who think Nordic crime is all gloom. Aksel Hennie plays Roger Brown, a corporate headhunter who funds an expensive life by stealing art, until he goes after a valuable painting owned by a former mercenary played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. Adapted from Jo Nesbø's novel,…0