Best Swedish documentary movies
Get ready to binge. We've found a collection of must-watch documentary films from Sweden, now streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
Leave the World Behind (2014)
Leave the World Behind (2014)
A music documentary following the breakup of Swedish House Mafia and their subsequent One Last Tour. The largest electronic tour in history, selling over 1 million tickets in one week. Director Christian Larson captures the band in a unique fly on the wall manner as they call it quits and seek closure by going on the tour they had always dreamed of. With breathtaking live moments, huge laughs and dark lows, the band start to unravel why they came to the decision to end the biggest achievement of their lives to date to save their friendship. The film maps out three of the biggest stars in a scene which has gripped youth the world over and the psychology of the band. A film not to be missed.
I Am Greta (2020)
I Am Greta (2020)
Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden, started a school strike for the climate as her question for adults was, if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolved into a global movement as the quiet teenage girl on the autism spectrum becomes a world-famous activist.
The Dog Walker (2014)
The Dog Walker (2014)
Retired actor Lars-Gunnar Persson spends his days with his neighbor's dog, sharing memories of failed relationships and questioning what life might have been. It's a friendship that suits Lars-Gunnar because the dog, Zeb, is an excellent listener.
Avicii - My Last Show (2024)
Excess Will Save Us (2019)
Excess Will Save Us (2019)
In a small village of the North of France, an attack alert has been set off due to the combination of two events: the beginning of the hunting season and an argument between drunk Polish workers.
Europa: The Last Battle (2017)
Europa: The Last Battle (2017)
An antisemitic, World War II revisionist 'documentary' that claims the Jewish people deliberately caused both World Wars – and that Hitler was only trying to save Germany from the Jews – as part of a plot to found the nation of Israel.
Becoming Zlatan (2015)
Becoming Zlatan (2015)
The decisive years of Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimović, told through rare archive footage in which a young Zlatan speaks openly about his life and challenges. The film closely follows him, from his debut with the Malmö FF team in 1999 through his conflict-ridden years with Ajax Amsterdam, and up to his final breakthrough with Juventus in 2005.
PressPausePlay (2011)
PressPausePlay (2011)
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent of people in an unprecedented way, unleashing unlimited creative opportunites. But does democratized culture mean better art, film, music and literature or is true talent instead flooded and drowned in the vast digital ocean of mass culture? Is it cultural democracy or mediocrity? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (2021)
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (2021)
In 1971, due to the world premiere of Death in Venice, Italian director Lucino Visconti proclaimed his Tadzio as the world’s most beautiful boy. A shadow that today, 50 years later, weighs Björn Andrésen’s life.
Yung Lean: In My Head (2020)
Yung Lean: In My Head (2020)
When a Swedish teen rapper finds a rabid fanbase via the internet, international superstar Yung Lean is born. But as his fame grows, darkness settles in, blurring the line between reality and his own vivid imagination.
Bergman: A Year in a Life (2018)
Bergman: A Year in a Life (2018)
The year 1957 was one of the most prolific for the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman: he shot two films, released two of his most celebrated films and produced four plays and a TV movie while juggling with a complicated private life.
Steal This Film (2006)
Steal This Film (2006)
Steal This Film focuses on Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, prominent members of the Swedish filesharing community. The makers claimed that 'Old Media' documentary crews couldn't understand the internet culture that filesharers took part in, and that they saw peer-to-peer organization as a threat to their livelihoods. Because of that, they were determined to accurately represent the filesharing community from within. Notably, Steal This Film was released and distributed, free of charge, through the same filesharing networks that the film documents.
The Swedish Theory of Love (2015)
The Swedish Theory of Love (2015)
Internationally Sweden is seen as a perfect society, a raw model and a symbol of the highest achievements of human progress. The Swedish Theory of Love digs into the true nature of Swedish life style, explores the existential black holes of a society that has created the most autonomous people in the world.
Sabaya (2021)
Sabaya (2021)
With just a mobile phone and a gun, Mahmud, Ziyad and their group risk their lives trying to save Yazidi women and girls being held by ISIS as Sabaya (abducted sex slaves) in the most dangerous camp in the Middle East, Al-Hol in Syria.
Trespassing Bergman (2013)
Trespassing Bergman (2013)
In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, and left Stockholm to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special film buffs, came from all over the world, travel to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (An abridged version of Bergman's Video, 2012.)
Bikes vs Cars (2015)
Bikes vs Cars (2015)
Bikes vs Cars depicts a global crisis that we all deep down know we need to talk about: Climate, earth's resources, cities where the entire surface is consumed by the car. An ever-growing, dirty, noisy traffic chaos. The bike is a great tool for change, but the powerful interests who gain from the private car invest billions each year on lobbying and advertising to protect their business. In the film we meet activists and thinkers who are fighting for better cities, who refuse to stop riding despite the increasing number killed in traffic.
The Architecture of Doom (1989)
The Architecture of Doom (1989)
Featuring never-before-seen film footage of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, The Architecture of Doom captures the inner workings of the Third Reich and illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture and popular culture. From Nazi party rallies to the final days inside Hitler's bunker, this sensational film shows how Adolf Hitler rose from being a failed artist to creating a world of ponderous kitsch and horrifying terror. Hitler worshipped ancient Rome and Greece, and dreamed of a new Golden Age of classical art and monumental architecture, populated by beautiful, patriotic Aryans. Degenerated artists and inferior races had no place in his lurid fantasy. As this riveting film shows, the Nazis went from banning the art of modernists like Picasso to forced euthanasia of the retarded and sick, and finally to the persecution of homosexuals and the extermination of the Jews.
ABBA: In Concert (1979)
ABBA: In Concert (1979)
ABBA's 1979 tour of North America and Europe, with emphasis on performances at Wembley Arena, London.
The Gullspång Miracle (2023)
The Gullspång Miracle (2023)
Two Norwegian sisters receive a premonition from God that makes them buy an apartment in a tiny Swedish town, Gullspång. Meeting the seller, she is a dead-ringer of their older sister, who committed suicide 30 years ago.
Take One: A Documentary Film About Swedish House Mafia (2010)
Take One: A Documentary Film About Swedish House Mafia (2010)
This unique film follows a group of 3 DJs Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso as Swedish House Mafia over the course of 2 years, 285 gigs and 15 countries. The film charts their journey from the point at which the Swedish House Mafia really starts to cause big waves to finishing their first hit single, ONE, under a ground breaking joint venture record deal with Virgin Records. There are appearences by Kylie Minogue, Pharell Williams, Tinie Tempah and Dirty South and the film was directed by Christian Larson.
Lucky People Center International (1998)
Lucky People Center International (1998)
Lucky People Center International takes us on a journey around the world through human souls. Music's rhythms and the film's pulsing form reminiscent of the music video aesthetics and gives the documentary a new face. The film traveled around the world for two years to find people and lifestyles that reflect the world before 2000.
Superswede: A film about Ronnie Peterson (2017)
ABBA Forever: A Celebration (2019)
ABBA Forever: A Celebration (2019)
This definitive music documentary, featuring a greatest hits soundtrack and bounty of classic performance clips, provides an inside look into how Swedish pop group ABBA's music was made, as the former members and various colleagues tell their story from pre-ABBA days onward.
World of Darkness (2017)
World of Darkness (2017)
An in-depth look into how the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade created a phenomenon in the 1990s – a zeitgeist that helped shape film, literature, fashion, club culture, and ultimately fans, whose lives it forever altered.
Avicii on Tour (2013)
Avicii on Tour (2013)
Tim Bergling, better know known to his millions of fans as Avicii, is at 24 already one of the world's best known and loved DJ:s. He plays sold-out venues all over the world and his name on the line up guarantees an almost insane audience response. But Avicii is also an artist with a conscience and together with his manager Ash, he is dedicated to fighting global hunger. This film follows Avicii during his Spring 2013 tour of Australia, where the profits went straight into their charity project "House for Hunger".
They Call Us Misfits (1968)
They Call Us Misfits (1968)
A documentary film depicting a group of young boys from Stockholm which live on the outskirts of society. The film is the first part of a trilogy.
Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping (2016)
Freightened: The Real Price of Shipping (2016)
In an audacious investigation, Freightened will reveal the mechanics and perils of freight shipment; an all-but-visible industry that holds the key to our economy, our environment and the very model of our civilisation.