Best Estonian crime movies
A curated collection of popular crime movies from Estonia.

Melchior the Apothecary (2022)
Melchior the Apothecary (2022)
In medieval Tallinn, a famous knight who is freed from the pirates of the Baltic Sea is murdered. The hero's head is cut off and his mouth is stuffed with coins. The gold chain he bought the same day is missing. The bailiff orders Melchior, an apothecary, to investigate the crime. The clever young man discovers that the slain was looking for a mysterious "Tallinn prisoner" and the traces lead to the Dominican monastery. A fabulous sequence of bloodwork is unleashed - anyone who comes into contact with this secret is in danger of dying.

Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter (2023)
Melchior the Apothecary: The Executioner's Daughter (2023)
Melchior’s bride Keterlyn happens to witness an attack on a young man. The victim, who has lost his memory, does not know who he is and how he ended up in a Tallinn. A ring found at the scene leads Melchior to the trail of the nocturnal brotherhood, questions are also raised by the troupe of freaks who performed on fair day. Ominous signs suggest that not only is the stranger recovering from a murder attempt at risk, but Melchior and Keterlyn as well. At the same time, an inquisitor known as a ruthless witch hunter arrives in town. Melchior's ability to "speak to the dead" and to notice invisible traces of murder have raised the suspicion that he may be a dangerous heretic. And the place of the enemy of the church is at the stake…

Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost (2022)
Melchior the Apothecary: The Ghost (2022)
In the middle of the night, a drunk town guard happens to meet the daughter of a rich merchant… who drowned herself into a well 10 years ago. Soon after the town guard falls dead from the tower. This is followed by two other suspicious deaths. Doubting the existence of the ghost, Melchior has a hunch that these ‘accidents’ are part of a heinous crime. Tracking down the killer, his path will cross with heretics, old feuds and dark family secrets.

The Shadow (2024)
The Shadow (2024)
Juhan Liiv, a struggling poet and an unlikely detective, solves gruesome murder cases in Estonia, the Wild West of the crumbling Russian Empire in the 1890s. Investigations take him to miserable dwellings of the local Estonian peasants, luxurious castles of German nobility that have sworn allegiance to the Czar, and to the depths of ancient forests where witchcraft is still practiced. Juhan is fighting crime and his own inner demons. He is considered mad and pronounced crazy. But by standing for justice and truth, at the end of the day, he is the sanest of them all.

Mihkel (2018)
Mihkel (2018)
Mihkel boards a ferry from his small town in Estonia to Saint Petersburg in Russia, on his way to Iceland, where he wants to make a new life for himself and his fiancée, Vera. His friend Igor, who emigrated to Iceland a few years earlier, convinces Mihkel to smuggle two bottles of liquid amphetamine and then seek payment from an Estonian priest, who is a business partner of Igor’s in Saint Petersburg. The priest is then to set him up in his new home and bring Vera over to join him. Rather than getting paid, he is instead coerced into swallowing seventy drug capsules to take on to Iceland. He arrives in Iceland and is picked up by Igor and his two Icelandic accomplices, Jóhann and Bóbó. However, in the next two days it becomes clear that something is wrong and Mihkel cannot pass the drugs. The Icelandic criminals become very nervous, and more and more frantic activity ensues as the situation becomes more serious.

An Unusual Story (1974)
An Unusual Story (1974)
A young investigator fresh from the university gets assigned an arson case. 18-year-old Epp-Kai has admitted to the crime but he cannot see the girl's motive. His partner, an experienced investigator, already has enough work and doesn't think it's necessary to have further conversations with the accused. The young investigator senses however that Epp-Kai is hiding something.

The Sixth Secret (2022)
The Sixth Secret (2022)
At a late-night seance, attended by twelve people, the medium announces that five secrets will be revealed before midnight. There might, however, be one more - the darkest of them all.

Kid Detectives and the Secret of the White Lady (2013)
Kid Detectives and the Secret of the White Lady (2013)
In a quiet resort town Haapsalu four kids are spending their summer holidays together. Suddenly they are dragged into events that started in the 15th century in the local bishop's stronghold. The children must solve a difficult mystery of a clock robbery and they have to find a treasure that has been lost for centuries and contains a formula of making gold.

Uninvited Guests (1959)
Uninvited Guests (1959)
Four Estonians who have escaped to Sweden during the war return to Soviet Estonia in the 1950s. The four saboteurs work for the Western Secret Service. Difficulties arise when they cross the border with an injured companion - the three have to decide what to do next.

Too Tired to Hate (1995)
Too Tired to Hate (1995)
This modern western depicting juvenile crime takes as its theme the struggle of an individual against a vicious circle of violence. The spiral of violence and revenge is only broken when one person conquers himself and refuses to continue the vendetta. Siim, a 14-year old who grew up in the streets, is only spared the violence because he has a natural antipathy to it. Ultimately he too is caught up in the fighting when he tries to save money for his girlfriend's Christmas gift and the cash is stolen.

The Firewater (1994)
The Firewater (1994)
At the end of the 1920-s the Finnish government proclaimed dry law which lasted 12 years. Estonian bootleggers living on the neighboring coast of the Gulf of Finland profited from prohibition......