Jar City (2006)

Iceland'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 frame with gray skies, rain and cramped, stale interiors, and the film never hurries. What makes it special is how personal the case becomes: the past refuses to stay buried in a country this small. If the windswept Icelandic series are your favorites, this is the film with the same weather and the same weariness.