The 27 Best Nordic Noir TV Series

Snow, knitwear and long silences carry most of these Scandinavian thrillers, though a few swap the bleak police procedural for forest folklore or boardroom fraud.

1. 1
   The Bridge

   Swedish-Danish series (2011–2018) that opens with a body left exactly on the Øresund Bridge border.
   1000pts
2. 2
   Mammon

   Norwegian series (2014–2016) where a journalist uncovers financial crime that implicates his own brother.
   633pts
3. 3
   Before We Die

   Swedish series Innan vi dör (2017–2021), where a detective's undercover son is caught inside a crime family.
   542pts
4. 4
   Midnight Sun

   Franco-Swedish series Midnattssol (2016) sending a Paris detective to Kiruna under the never-setting sun.
   542pts
5. 5
   The Chestnut Man

   Danish Netflix thriller (2021) about a killer leaving little chestnut figures at Copenhagen crime scenes.
   542pts
6. 6
   Deadwind

   Finnish series Karppi (2018–2025) following a widowed detective through Helsinki construction-site murders.
   487pts
7. 7
   Unit One

   Danish series Rejseholdet (2000–2004), an Emmy-winning drama about a mobile national homicide squad.
   487pts
8. 8
   Sebastian Bergman

   Swedish series (2010–2013) starring Rolf Lassgård as an arrogant, grieving criminal psychologist.
   487pts
9. 9
   The Killing

   Danish drama Forbrydelsen (2007–2012), with Sarah Lund's sweaters and one murder case stretched across a whole season.
   487pts
10. 10
    Arne Dahl

    Swedish series (2011–2015) following the elite A-Unit through Arne Dahl's crime novels.
    422pts
11. 11
    Case

    Icelandic legal drama Réttur (2015) in which a teenage ballerina's death exposes a city's secrets.
    422pts
12. 12
    Bordertown

    Finnish series Sorjonen (2016–2020), with an eccentric detective moving to Lappeenranta near the Russian border.
    422pts
13. 13
    Millennium

    The 2010 Swedish miniseries built from Stieg Larsson's trilogy, with Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander.
    422pts
14. 14
    Rebecka Martinsson

    Swedish series (2017–2020) about a Stockholm lawyer pulled back to Kiruna by a local killing.
    345pts
15. 15
    Wisting

    Norwegian series (2019– ) based on Jørn Lier Horst's books about a Larvik police investigator.
    345pts
16. 16
    Jordskott

    Swedish series (2015–2017) mixing a missing-child case with Nordic folklore in a forest town.
    345pts
17. 17
    The Eagle

    Danish series Ørnen (2004–2006) following an Icelandic-born investigator into international crime.
    345pts
18. 18
    Follow the Money

    Danish series Bedrag (2016–2019) about fraud investigators chasing corruption at a green-energy firm.
    253pts
19. 19
    Wallander

    Swedish series (2005–2013) starring Krister Henriksson as Henning Mankell's weary Ystad detective.
    253pts
20. 20
    Trapped

    Icelandic series Ófærð (2015–2021), where a storm seals off a small fjord town after a torso turns up.
    253pts
21. 21
    Beck

    Long-running Swedish police series based on the Sjöwall and Wahlöö novels, on screen since 1997.
    253pts
22. 22
    Darkness: Those Who Kill

    Danish series Den som dræber (2011), with a profiler and detective hunting serial killers.
    253pts
23. 23
    Dicte

    Danish series (2013–2016) about a crime reporter returning to Aarhus and digging into murders.
    253pts
24. 24
    Thin Ice

    Swedish series Tunn is (2020) about a murder in Greenland during an Arctic Council meeting.
    253pts
25. 25
    The Investigation

    Tobias Lindholm's 2020 Danish drama about the police inquiry into Kim Wall's murder.
    0pts
26. 26
    Modus

    Swedish series (2015–2017) based on Anne Holt's novels, with a criminal profiler drawn into a serial case.
    0pts
27. 27
    The Valhalla Murders

    Icelandic series Brot (2019) about killings linked to a former boys' home in Reykjavík.
    0pts

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