Best Finnish documentary movies
Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch documentary films from Finland, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015)
Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words (2015)
A personal and captivating account of the extraordinary life and work of Ingrid Bergman (1915-82), a young Swedish woman who became one of the most celebrated actresses in world cinema.
Diving Into the Unknown (2016)
Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland (2010)
Reindeerspotting: Escape from Santaland (2010)
Reindeerspotting is a documentary film of a group of young guys living in Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle, dabbling in petty crime and hard drugs. One of them, Jani, has lost five years of his life and two fingers to his debotators. He wants to leave Lapland and his old life behind. Robbing a supermarket is a start for his getaway. A few years back a documentarist, Joonas Neuvonen, was a young men living on social welfare, using drugs on daily basis. He started to film his friends and their life. This is the story of Jani.
Hold Your Breath: The Ice Dive (2022)
Lost Boys (2020)
Lost Boys (2020)
Lost Boys tells the true, undisguised story of what happened ten years ago, after group of friends continued their eternal afterparty following the success of their movie premiere, Reindeerspotting: Escape From Santaland, which depicted group of drug users from Rovaniemi, Finland. The partying ends when friends of Joonas goes missing and Jani dies violently in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Joonas takes his camera and sets out to find out what happened to his friend. Was it all about drugs, women and money or do the traces lead somewhere deeper?
Nightwish: Showtime, Storytime (2013)
Nightwish: Showtime, Storytime (2013)
Showtime, Storytime is a double Blu-ray, DVD and CD from Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. Nuclear Blast recorded their live performance at the Wacken Open Air in Wacken, Germany on August 3, 2013. Showtime, Storytime is the first Nightwish production to feature Floor Jansen on vocals. 1. Dark Chest Of Wonders 2. Wish I Had An Angel 3. She Is My Sin 4. Ghost River 5. Ever Dream 6. Storytime 7. I Want My Tears Back 8. Nemo 9. Last Of The Wilds 10. Bless The Child 11. Romanticide 12. Amaranth 13. Ghost Love Score 14. Song Of Myself 15. Last Ride Of The Day 16. Outro: Imaginaerum
The Finnish Flash - A Teemu Selänne Story (2013)
The Finnish Flash - A Teemu Selänne Story (2013)
Selänne is a documentary about Teemu Selänne—the best Finnish ice hockey player of all time. It's directed by JP Siili, whose previous films include such hits as Härmä and Ganes. We've followed the heroic tales of Selänne for over two decades. His exploits are famous, but now we get to know Selänne the man. In this documentary Teemu lets the viewer get close and under his skin. The film follows Selänne's journey from childhood to the latest NHL season. We see the life story of an exceptional athlete inside and out, not only through Teemu's words, but through the views of his loved ones and colleagues. Selänne is charismatic, social, irritating, charming, happy and always late. Welcome to the life of Teemu Selänne!
The Punk Syndrome (2012)
The Punk Syndrome (2012)
The Punk Syndrome is a film about Finland’s most kick-ass punk rock band, Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät. The band members, Pertti, Kari, Toni and Sami, are mentally handicapped and they play their music with a lot of attitude and pride. We follow these professional musicians on their journey from obscurity to popularity. We watch them fight, fall in love and experience strong emotions. We witness long days in the recording studio and on tour. They laugh, cry, drink and fight over who gets to sit in the front on the tour bus. Then it’s time to make up and go talk to people in the audience and tell them how great their band is.
Helsinki, Forever (2008)
Helsinki, Forever (2008)
Helsinki, Forever is a montage film about the city of Helsinki by the award-winning Finnish film director and academic Peter von Bagh. The film draws a portrait of Helsinki and also acts as an essay on Finnish culture in a wider sense. It shows Helsinki as captured by leading Finnish feature film and documentary makers over a period of one hundred years.
Tukdam – Between Worlds (2022)
Tukdam – Between Worlds (2022)
Most of us think of death as something clear-cut, and that medical science has it neatly figured out. This feature documentary explodes such assumptions through its exploration of a phenomenon that blurs life and death to an unprecedented degree. In what Tibetan Buddhists call tukdam, advanced meditators die in a consciously controlled manner. Though dead according to our biomedical standards, they often stay sitting upright in meditation; remarkably, their bodies remain fresh and lifelike, without signs of decay for days, sometimes weeks after clinical death. Following ground-breaking scientific research into tukdam and taking us into intimate death stories of Tibetan meditators, the film juxtaposes scientific and Tibetan perspectives as it tries to unravel the mystery of tukdam.
My Stuff (2013)
My Stuff (2013)
Twentysomething Petri got over a break-up by pushing his credit card limit in order to buy stuff. Still, after three years, the anxiety remains, so all things must go into a storage container. For a year, Petri allows himself to retrieve only one item per day. New life begins naked next to a radiator.
Tale of a Lake (2016)
Tale of a Lake (2016)
Tale of a Lake is a film about the thousands of lakes that Finland is known for. It takes the viewers on an unprecedented adventure, ranging from the crystal clear springs all the way to the basins of the big lakes. It opens a whole new world of underwater nature for the viewers, and tells about the many old tales and beliefs in the land of thousands of lakes. The story of the film is told through tales that are based around the myths, legends and old beliefs that are part of the Finnish mythology.
The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation (2021)
The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation (2021)
An exhaustive explanation of how the military occupation of an invaded territory occurs and its consequences, using as a paradigmatic example the recent history of Israel and the Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from 1967, when the Six-Day War took place, to the present day; an account by filmmaker Avi Mograbi enriched by the testimonies of Israeli army veterans.
Nokia Mobile: We Were Connecting People (2017)
Nokia Mobile: We Were Connecting People (2017)
Once upon a time there was a large Finnish company called Nokia that manufactured the world’s best and most innovative mobile phones. Nokia’s annual budget was larger than that of the Government of Finland and their phones spread everywhere and changed the whole culture of communication. But then something changed. Film portrays the rise and fall of Nokia and the Finnish mobile phone industry. Nokia engineers, designers and managers tell their story about the creation, success and downfall of the Finnish mobile phone.
Finland from East to West (2017)
Finland from East to West (2017)
On December 6, 1917, Finland declared its independence from Russia. A detailed chronicle of the major events in the history of this young European nation.
The Name of the Game (2018)
The Name of the Game (2018)
The Name of the Game is a feature-length documentary about the team up between the legendary arcade game designer, Eugene Jarvis, and the Finnish game developer, Housemarque. The end result of the collaboration was the critically acclaimed PS4/PC title Nex Machina. The film gives the audience an unprecedented access to the unpredictable and plain crazy world of making a video game – uncensored.
After Work (2023)
After Work (2023)
Kuwait’s constitution says that every person has the right to a job, so in some places 20 people are employed for one person’s job. In South Korea, they work so much that a policy has been introduced to turn off computers at the end of the day so that employees can’t work any more. In the US, they give up over 500 million holiday hours each year, while Amazon’s drivers are trying to form a union. Meanwhile, robots are poised to take over most jobs and put the rest of us out of work. Work is so crucial to our identity and what we spend our waking hours on that it is barely noticed anymore. A lot has happened since a group of Puritan priests invented the concept of work ethic in the 1600s, and in the 21st century the very concept of work is in many ways disintegrating. A perfect situation for a filmmaker like Swedish mastermind Erik Gandini, who travels the world to explore what the concept of work means today – if it means anything at all.
War and Peace of Mind (2016)
War and Peace of Mind (2016)
War and Peace of Mind explores what war does to the human mind and how both, the individuals and the nation as a whole, survive it psychologically. Finland and WWII, locally known as continuation war, is the backdrop of this documentary.
The Day the Sun Fell (2015)
The Day the Sun Fell (2015)
Tracing the past of her deceased grandfather who worked as a young doctor in the Red Cross hospital of HirSwiss-Japanese filmmaker Aya Domenig, the granddaughter of a doctor on duty during the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, approaches the experience of her deceased grandfather by tracing the lives of a doctor and of former nurses who once shared the same experience. While gathering the memories and present views of these last survivors, the nuclear disaster in Fukushima strikes and history seems to repeat itself.oshima after the atomic bomb was dropped over the city, the filmmaker encounters doctors and nurses who went through similar experiences to his at the time. Right up until his death in 1991, her grandfather was never able to speak about his experiences, but the formidable stories and openness of her protagonists bring her closer to his past.
The Land of Mine (2016)
The Land of Mine (2016)
Republic of Finland is promoting clean technology by organizing Green Mining seminars where foreign experts tell us how the development of the world is becoming increasingly expensive by 2050. The Earth is running out of resources and mining companies have to use increasingly low-grade metal deposits. Finland aims to be a model country for environmentally friendly mining. Its pioneer project is Talvivaara, which uses new biotechnology to extract nickel, zinc and uranium. Through several charismatic characters, the documentary film The Land Of Mine follows the rise of the biggest nickel mine in Western Europe and the ensuing disasters whose effects continue to reverberate in the nation.
Tale of a Forest (2012)
Tale of a Forest (2012)
A documentary that unveils the primeval forests of Northern Finland, some of Europe's sole remaining, old-growth forests. The main characters of the film are the various inhabitants of the forest: the bears and the elk, the snakes and the owls, the ants, the frogs and the flying squirrels, the ancient soul birds such as the Siberian Jay, the Lapland Owl and many, many others.
Red Forest Hotel (2012)
Red Forest Hotel (2012)
Documentary about the environmental policies and tree-planting campaigns of the Chinese state, and the eucalyptus plantations of the Finnish forestry company Stora Enso in Guangxi province and their impact on the lives and livelihoods of local residents.
The Homecoming (2023)
The Homecoming (2023)
Sámi artefacts from the Finnish National Museum are returning home to Sápmi, while the holy drums of the Sámi people are still imprisoned in the basements of museums across Europe. The returning objects symbolise the dignity, identity, history, connection to ancestors and a whole world view that was taken from the Sámi people. Director Suvi West takes the viewer behind the scenes of the museum world to reflect on the spirit of the objects, the inequality of cultures and the colonialist burden of museums.
Hunt for U-479 (2009)
Hunt for U-479 (2009)
Two Finnish filmmakers and an international team of divers embark on a quest to find the lost WWII German U-boat, U-479, in the Gulf of Finland. Despite Soviet claims of its sinking by the submarine Lembit, unanswered questions prompted the filmmakers to investigate the mystery firsthand.
Phantoms of the Sierra Madre (2024)
Finlandia (1922)
Finlandia (1922)
A documentary from Erkki Karu, one of the earliest pioneers of Finnish cinema: This government-produced propaganda film introduces the nature, sports, military, agriculture and capital of Finland.
Temples of Dreams (2015)
Temples of Dreams (2015)
Documentary about Finnish film theaters - about their past, disappearance and future. And at the same time universal story how cinema is undeniably connected with life.
To Teach a Bird to Fly (2020)
To Teach a Bird to Fly (2020)
This experimental nature documentary by Minna Rainio and Mark Roberts depicts climate change and the wave of extinction from the point of view of our near future. Actually, it depicts the age we live in now, or rather its fateful consequences.