Best Swedish documentary movies

Before Avicii, there was Tim. Through his own words, witness how a prodigious musical talent became one of the defining artists of his generation.

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.

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.

On Aug. 28, 2016, Tim Bergling, better known as Avicii, graced the stage of the Ushuaïa nightclub in Ibiza for what would be his final performance.

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.

Renowned Swedish TV-duo Filip and Fredrik embark on a trip to France, aiming to rekindle the zest for life of Filip's father.

From casting to the final scene, this special shows how the cast and crew of "Young Royals" brought Wilhelm and Simon's heartwarming journey to life.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ronnie Peterson nicknamed “Superswede” was the fastest formula 1-driver in the 70s who never became a world champion.

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.

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.

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.

A decade has gone by and the spirit of the preceding film, Dom kallar oss mods, has disappeared. Kenta is an alcoholic and lives with his girlfriend Eva. Together they have a son, Patric. Kenta's mom is in jail for manslaughter and Kenta goes to Kronoberg to greet her. Heroin also comes to play and Stoffe is one of those who falls victim to it. He lives with his girlfriend Lena and their young son, Janne. Lena later throws Stoffe out their home when she gets enough of his abuse, and he is forced to live with his mother. Kenta calls Stoffe and decides to meet him, and he tries to persuade him to give up heroin, but the two have a falling out and they separate. This film features other users from the previous film, such as Jajje and Kenta Bergkvist. The film ends with the death of a prominent person in the trilogy.

From the first camera to 45 billion cameras worldwide today, the visual sociologist filmmakers widen their lens to expose both humanity's unique obsession with the camera's image and the social consequences that lay ahead.

Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was openly shot to death on a February evening 1986 on the streets of Stockholm. In one night, the country of Sweden was transfigured. “Palme” is about his life, his time, and about the Sweden he had created. About a man who altered history.

10 Meter Tower is a short film taking place in a swimming pool with 6 cameras aimed at the tallest diving tower. All focus is on the 43 people between 9 and 78 years old. They have one thing in common, this is the first time in their lives they climb up to the platform to make the decision whether to jump or not. The situation itself highlights a dilemma: to weigh the instinctive fear of taking the step out against the humiliation of having to climb down.

ABBA's 1979 tour of North America and Europe, with emphasis on performances at Wembley Arena, London.

A documentary from SVT about some of the residents in Vinslöv, a small village in the south of Sweden and about Kjell Fredriksson, the European champion in miniature golf.

Gert van der Graaf, an infamous stalker, reveals how his childhood crush on Abba superstar Agnetha Fältskog turned into an obsession that shaped the rest of his life, thus showing how compulsive fandom can become criminal obsession.

Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. PUSH sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, our increasingly unliveable cities and an escalating crisis that has an effect on us all. This is not gentrification, it’s a different kind of monster.The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she’s travelling the globe, trying to understand who’s being pushed out of the city and why. “I believe there’s a huge difference between housing as a commodity and gold as a commodity. Gold is not a human right, housing is,” says Leilani.

As the first African team ever to do so, Somalia has just signed up for the Bandy World Championships. The young players don't live in Somalia; they live in Borlänge, Sweden, where xenophobia has taken hold.

As her adolescence gives way to the obligations of motherhood, troubled Gemma matures in Motherwell, her Scottish hometown, heavily dependent on the steel industry. Unfortunately for her, her hedonistic way of understanding the world does not fit in with the philosophy of the rest of the villagers, so trouble soon follows.

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.

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.)

In the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, Fakhir, a father of eight, is serving in the Iraqi army. All around him, he sees innocent civilians getting injured by landmines, so he determines to disarm them with his own hands, using just a pocketknife and some wire cutters. He clears thousands of roadside bombs, mines and car bombs, knowing that every time he cuts a wire it could cost him his life—which he seems to find less important than the lives of others. In 2014, by this time having lost a leg, he starts working for the Kurdish Peshmerga, disarming boobytraps left behind by Daesh in and around Mosul. An enthusiastic home video maker, Fakhir collects hundreds of hours of footage of his day-to-day work.

This documentary offers a rare glimpse of the legendary Soviet filmmaker, Andrei Tarkosvky, at work. Tarkovsky made only seven films in his brief, but brilliant, career; Michal Leszczylowski's respectful movie chronicles him at work on his last film, The Sacrifice. Offering insight into Tarkovsky's working methods and transcendental aesthetics, the movie is a compelling account of the difficulties of film production. In the case of an uncompromising and visionary filmmaker like Tarkovsky, the practical problems of filmmaking are only magnified, as cast and crew struggle to realize the ambitious concepts in Tarkovsky's mind.

Director 'Nicholas Ray' is eager to complete a final film before his imminent death from cancer. Wim Wenders is working on his own film Hammett (1983) in Hollywood, but flies to New York to help Ray realize his final wish. Ray's original intent is to make a fiction film about a dying painter who sails to China to find a cure for his disease. He and Wenders discuss this idea, but it is obviously unrealistic given Ray's state of health.

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".

The student campus Flogsta was built in Uppsala in the 1970s. Since then, the Flogsta roar has happened every evening at 22:00. This is the moment when hundreds of students unleash their anxiety at the same time and scream out of the windows. Probably a tradition unique in the world.

Nelly and Nadine meet in Ravensbrück concentration camp. They spend the rest of their lives together. Decades later, Nelly’s granddaughter goes in search of clues. A poignant film about a love story and the need for individual and collective remembrance.

Ghost Rider goes nuts on the busy street of Stockholm, terrorizing the local traffic and authorities. WARNING: Some scenes in this clip entail the reckless endangerment of the lives of people other than the driver. Ifilm neither condones nor encourages the sort of dangerous, illegal behavior presented in this video.

Misfits to Yuppies is the last of three films (Dom kallar oss mods, Ett anständigt liv, Det sociala arvet) that shows conditions for addicts in Stockholm and try to find out how social legacy have been transferred to their children from previous films.

She has been called the world's oldest blogger. This film is about a very energetic 103-year old, Dagny Carlsson.

The Making of Fanny and Alexander is a fascinating look at the creation of a masterpiece. Directed by Ingmar Bergman himself, this feature-length documentary chronicles the methods of one of cinema’s true luminaries as he labors to realize his crowning production.

In WikiRebels, we learn about the early hacker life of Julian Assange, and his later decision to form an organization where whistleblowers can anonymously pass information that documents crime and immorality. His stated goal is to expose injustice, and nothing exemplifies this more than the leaked film entitled “Collateral Murder.” WikiRebels shows other films released by WikiLeaks, and catalogs the most significant leaks since its 2006 inception, including the Iceland banking scandal, Kenya corruption and death squads, and toxic dumping in Cote D’Ivoire.

In Bodén’s hometown of Jämtland, staying put is anathema: speaking to a group of kids about this drive to leave home, she is told by a male student that only “stupid girls” would stay there any longer than is necessary. This hits home with Bodén, who was prompted to her research here by a conversation in which her sister declared, “I don’t think I’m worth more than Jämtland.” After her initial dismissiveness of her sister’s statement, she started to second-guess the conversation and her own ingrained notions of what it meant. This film is about Bodén’s search for understanding.

In Flames world tour captured by filmmaker Patric Ullaeus.

This a documentary in three parts by Astrid Lindgren. Whose stories and characters have traveled across all borders. The documentary shows previously unpublished material from diaries, correspondence and films.

Zoltán Török, the creator of the highly successful Wild Horses - A Tale from the Puszta and Wild Hungary - A Water Wonderland, has been living in Sweden for years with his wife, two daughters and dog. On regular tours they explore the colourful wildlife of the changing wilderness, and now they invite the audience to join them on their most exciting excursions. Along the way we roam stunning landscapes, from sea to glaciers, in the company of the wild animals of the far north. Zoltán Török spent three years making his most spectacular, heart-warming film to date. In addition to showing the wildlife of the Nordic countries, from seals to moose, his newest film raises awareness among children and parents about the love and protection of nature.

In the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, the militant organization People's Mojahedin (MEK) left their homeland, allied with Saddam Hussein, and settled in Iraq. Here, based on collectivist ideas, they established a large camp, Camp Ashraf. The organization became increasingly tied to its leaders, and in the early 1990s, it was decided that hundreds of children in the camp would be raised by sympathizers abroad. Amir, Parwin, Hanif, and Atefeh are some of those who ended up in Sweden, and in Sara Moein's deeply engaging documentary, they narrate their experiences to a rich archive of materials. They also try to reconnect with the organization and their parents, who are now in Albania.

For Ted, music and creation are the most important things in life. And around him he has a small group of friends who never hesitate to do everything they can to help him. My Brother Ted is a touching declaration of love from a big brother to his little brother.

Carl-Ivar Nilsson was an actor in the series "Hem till byn", but he carried a big secret that was revealed to a shocked family 1985.

For almost half of his life, Kenneth Viken has been in prison, and he does not know how many times he has been released, only to soon return . In January 2016 he is released again.

A twisted and exciting meeting between Lasse Åberg and Stig-Helmer.

Balder's premises are located in Norrtull's old hospital in Stockholm, a couple of rooms, a kitchen, some simple furniture, a piano that Lars could play on, if he only dared.

A film about an unusually stubborn man. Mikael Andersson was born without arms and legs. Today he is a strong, well-trained family man and lecturer with a lot to teach about willpower and human possibilities.

Documentary about wheel-chair bound stand-up comedian Jesper Odelberg. He was born with cerebral palsy and largely uses this as his material, but mixes his comedy with an overall serious message about inclusion and understanding.

It has been three years since Tom Alandh made the film "Det svåra livet" about homeless drug addict Pia. This film shows what has happened to her since.

The working class girl from Landala, Gothenburg, through the fine art of theatre and all the way to Hollywood.

"The Norrmalmstorgs drama from the inside" - For more than 30 years, the bank-robber Janne Olsson refused to talk about the noted bank-robbery at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm, in 1973. This is the first interview with Olsson.

On May 8, 1978, it was unusually quiet in the Aftonbladet editorial office. A stenciled document lay on every desk. "About our life at Aftonbladet, by the women in the Aftonbladet editorial office" was the text on the red cover, and the pages contained testimonies of sexual harassment and a deep-rooted alcohol culture in the workplace. The manifesto created a heated debate and later led to Aftonbladet starting the first women's editorial office in Swedish press. This documentary is about how the Document, 40 years before #metoo, changed the world, at least a little.

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.

SVT Sport has met some of Sweden's biggest sports stars to see how they handled the invisible opponent - covid-19.