Best Belgian drama series

A gripping anthological relationship thriller series exploring the emotional fallout of a child's abduction not only on the family but on the wider community, told over two time frames.

Through globalization, many countries have been opened and barriers removed to ensure easy trade, travel and cultural diversity. However, this openness has given opportunities to criminals looking to exploit the system and ultimately threaten our global safety. As Europe has become a "safe house" for criminals eluding law enforcers, a special kind of law enforcement team is needed to handle specific ongoing crimes on a global level. "Crossing Lines" is the story of one such team, made up of five international cops, headed by Captain Daniel. The team - comprised of individuals who have little in common - must learn to live and work under the most dangerous and potentially deadly conditions. Housed in an unused storage section underneath the ICC, this mismatched team faces bureaucratic, jurisdictional and cultural obstacles while traversing continents in pursuit of justice.

Undercover agents infiltrate a drug kingpin's operation by posing as a couple at the campground where he spends his weekends. Inspired by real events.

In the small bordertown of Villefranche, lost in the heart of a large forest, crime rate is six times higher than elsewhere in the area. Each new crime Major Laurène Weiss solves with the help of her unusual team makes her sink deeper and deeper into secrets of the area.

Following an outrageous bet, Fogg and his valet, Passepartout, take on the legendary journey of circumnavigating the globe in just 80 days, swiftly joined by aspiring journalist Abigail Fix, who seizes the chance to report on this extraordinary story.

A psychological thriller about Mie, a young woman with amnesia who is locked up in a secure psychiatric hospital. Mie is visited by Detective Inspector Wolkers who claims she was the last person seen with the vanished Thomas Spectre. As a witness and prime suspect, she appears to be the sole key to this mysterious disappearance. In order to solve the puzzle and find Thomas, Mie has to reconstruct her lost memories and find her way back through the dark labyrinth of her recent past.

Desperate for funds, Ferry Bouman stumbles upon a golden opportunity when a high-profile bust leaves a vacant position among Brabant's top dealers.

Twelve ordinary people are called for jury duty for a controversial murder case.

The story is set in a small village in the Ardennes, where a young African footballer is found dead. If all clues lead first to suicide, a police officer just arrived from Brussels does not take long to discover that this is a murder.

When a prodigal son sends his family's empire into crushing debt, his estranged brother returns to Antwerp's diamond district to pick up the pieces.

The nerve-racking events of a cold winter's day, seen from two different perspectives. The odd episodes tell the story of a team of police negotiators and special forces who respond to a hostage crisis in a small bank branch. The even episodes tell exactly the same events, only through the eyes of the criminals inside and their victims.

What if you had to investigate your own murder? This anthology series follows victims who wake up to find their own dead bodies and have to navigate the limbo between life and death to solve the mystery of who killed them and why.

Over a tense summer on the Belgian coast, a wealthy friend group faces adulthood's harsh realities while grappling with love and societal expectations.

A serial killer reverts to the 10 commandments in order to kick society a conscience with his crimes.

A group of friends get together thirty years after one of the group members died in a tragic accident while they were on holiday. What was supposed to be a relaxing vacation changes rapidly into a nightmare, when some of the friends are blackmailed with footage from that terrible week three decades ago.

Charismatic highwayman Jan de Lichte leads the oppressed and downtrodden in a revolt against the corrupt aristocracy of 18th-century Belgium.

Following a major catastrophe, a new society, Arcadia, is born. Resources have become scarce and a point system, known as the Citizen Score, is introduced. It determines what you can and may do and what a citizen is entitled to.

The investigations of two police officers from The Brussels Digital Unit, a unit specializing in cybercrime.

A police inspector investigates the robbery of 66 safe deposit boxes at a private bank in Brussels.

A local Belgian potato farmer loses all his money and tries to earn it back by growing cannabis.

Female detective Hannah Maes leads a police squad, specialized in sexual offenses. A smaller, but important part of the story is about the private quest of Hannah. She investigates a past robbery at her home and the subsequent brutal rape of her mother.

The story of Dutch speaking young teenagers and pupils in a high school in Antwerp, and their troubles, scandals and everyday life. Each season is told from a different person's point of view.

The series focuses on the Vangenechten family of butchers. Business is going well until Rudy, the butcher couple's only son, suddenly returns home after years of absence. He refuses to say where he has been all this time, but he does want to come back home and work in the butcher shop.

Young women from Lithuania and Russia are taken to Belgium by a gang involved in the sex trade to work as sex slaves.

Eccentric criminal psychology Professor T is a successful police advisor but his unpredictable nature drives his colleagues crazy. He has a brilliant mind, but also several psychological and neurological disorders which make him a complex and often difficult individual. However, aided by the trusty and understanding Annelies and Daan they form a team of high-powered experts that Antwerp Homicide Department rely on. After Season Two, however, things change radically. This is a thinking person's television series.

Freed after 20 years in prison, the child killer Guy Beranger found refuge with the monks in Vielsart, a small village in Belgian's Ardennes. He is placed under the protection of a young Federal Police's inspector, Chloé Muller. A little while after his release, a little girl disappears.

In the turbulent 1980s, friends Marc and Franky, and his sister Vicky, move to Brussels for a career with the Gendarmerie. Soon the three young people are sucked into a spiral of crimes that are attributed to the so-called "Bende van Nijvel" gang.

The story of five underdogs, meeting by chance during a quiz in a local pub. They get the idea of taking part in the "Superprestige", the most important quiz. The selection procedure turns out to be difficult, requiring more than just knowledge. There's even more at stake than the five had in mind. "Quiz Me Quick" follows their successes as well as their failures

Since the death of their parents, five sisters have formed a close-knit clan—until one of them marries. The other four see the devilish husband as the source of all misery and hatch a plan to get rid of him.

In a community bound by an age-old tradition, how possible is it to revamp a business for the dead? A Moroccan-Belgian entrepreneur attempts to find out.

Three women become entangled in the world of human trafficking and prostitution when Esther's husband suddenly disappears. From completely different worlds, the lives of these women become intertwined. They discover that they need each other to escape from the difficult situations they find themselves in.

At East Bank Station, a close-knit team of firefighters must balance a dangerous, high-stress job, personal challenges and professional setbacks.

Three middle-aged brothers and their families are turned upside down when an unexpected guest, a refugee from Cameroon, shows up on their doorstep.

Haunted by a shadowy past, the wife of a rising star in Amsterdam's mayoral office finds herself drawn into the city’s underworld of sex and drugs.

After two years in prison, professional con man Alidor Van Praet needs to rebuild the illegal fortune the police seized from him. When he spots 19-year-old Jeremy Peeter’s hacking skills at a computing convention, he knows this shy teenager is the key to making it happen and to get revenge on the financial system that drove his father to suicide.

When a nuclear plant is sabotaged, the power grid in Belgium crashes. Prime Minister Annemie Hillebrand is forced to prolong the blackout, otherwise her daughter -who has been kidnapped- will die. Can Michael Dendoncker of the counter terrorism unit, rescue the girl in a country that's off the grid.

The story of the Boesman family's attempt to survive in the city of Ghent during the first world war focusing on each of the five family member's different experiences

25-year-old medical student Tristan Devriendt's life is turned upside down when he suddenly develops cancer and thus becomes a patient himself. Ambitious dreams are abruptly interrupted and give way to a life-and-death struggle. Tristan, his family and friends find themselves in a confusing mix of emotions with humour and love as an unexpected side effect.

Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010. In Bruges, some 200 cyclists and their entourage are getting ready for the 94th Tour of Flanders. A sea of supporters awaits them along the route, while millions more follow Flanders' finest on radio or TV. With the race as a backdrop, De ronde tells the story of a number of people who, like the cyclists, have everything to gain or lose today. The series originally had nine episodes, but these were recut to seven episodes for the DVD.

John Beckers gains one last chance from his wife Marjan and their two children to get his life back on track. After a visit to rehab, John starts his new job at the freight company of his father-in-law. The port of Antwerp is a whole new world for the former TV star. It’s a harsh environment, but also one with its own rules and traditions. John fights his old demons as well as new temptations, but quickly enters a dangerous arena but also a very lucrative trade of the docks: cocaine. John Beckers came to work at the port, but finds increasingly extreme ways to make the port work for him.

De Ridder is a Flemish crime series that is broadcasted by the network één since 2013. The series is set in the court of Ghent where Helena De Ridder, played by Clara Cleymans, is a public prosecutor.

Tom and Linda are thirtysomethings living in Belgium, along the French border. He is a policeman, she is a beautician, and they are on the verge of bankruptcy. Caught between a rock and a hard place, they embark on a get-rich-quick life insurance scam in an attempt to give themselves a fresh start someplace sunny. Their plan is going pretty well … until everything goes wrong, when Philippe, a French gendarme with whom Linda has an affair starts to investigate… Good People also tells the story of a small border town between France and Belgium and its people who can’t seem to face the evil eating away at their community.

Das Haus Anubis is a children's television series produced jointly by Belgian broadcaster Studio 100 and Nickelodeon and the first remake of Het Huis Anubis aired in The Netherlands and Belgium. Another English remake called House of Anubis aired in 2011. With a seven-figure production budget, it is one of Nickelodeon's largest in-house productions, and the first German daily soap opera specifically aimed at children. From 29 September 2009 to 4 May 2012, the show had been running both on children's channel Nick, and season 1 on music channel VIVA. Das Haus Anubis is aimed at children twelve years old and above, and is the German remake of the successful Dutch television programme, Het Huis Anubis. This 2006/2009 series was one of the most successful children's series in the Benelux countries.

The series follows criminology professor Mia van der Linden who chooses a small group of students to solve cold cases. But during their work they come across a case that they are suddenly no longer allowed to investigate by higher authorities. The group of students must use the law cunningly to find justice.

Five guys spent their time in prison. Some of them even for murder. Now they want to run a restaurant called Amigo's. But not everything goes how it was supposed to go.

Zone Stad is a Flemish-Belgian TV series about a police-department located in Antwerp. In the series, police officers solve various crimes, which are shown as realistically as possible.

When her marriage fails Sylvia is forced to move with her children into a brothel on the Chaussée d'Amour. Out of financial necessity she decides to exploit the bar. Meanwhile a detective tries to solve an old murder case.

Two brothers, one shared dream - that of becoming a professional football player. When one is selected to play for a top football club, he discovers the glamourous yet deceitful world of top class football. The other brother's football dream is shattered, and he must find another way to make something of his life. Both the brothers and their family will find out that there's a price to be paid for success. Will their love for each other turn out to be stronger than the call of money and fame?

Flikken was a popular Flemish-Belgian TV series about a police-department located in Ghent. The show started in 1999 and ended recently on 19 April 2009. In the series, a team of six police officers solved various crimes, petty crimes as well as organised crime. The series always aimed at showing the policework in a realistic way - though a little personal drama was never far off. Of all the actors that came along during the ten seasons, only Mark Tijsmans and Ludo Hellinx appeared throughout the entire series. Flikken was produced by the VRT and broadcast on Belgian public channel Eén and TROS in the Netherlands. Flikken is very popular in Belgium and the Netherlands. The show has had very high ratings of up to 1.8 million viewers during the last season. Every year the VRT organises the Flikkendag, a family day where the public can meet the actors of the show. There are many games, demonstrations of the real police and other safety organisations and performances of singers. On 18 April 2009, a special farewell party was organised in Ghent, in which the actors and crew said goodbye to their fans - thousands had assembled to watch the show on stage.

The love story of a left-wing girl and a right-wing boy.

Lili en Marleen is a television series about the fortunes of the residents of café De Lichttoren from World War II until the end of the 1960s in Antwerp (Belgium). The series is based on the play of the same name by Walter Van de Velde, which was first performed by the Traveling People's Theater in 1987.

Ed Bex, a man with an eating disorder: as soon as he puts something in his mouth, he sees what happened to it. He uses this special gift in his unusual job: with 'The Last Greeting' he helps relatives to reconstruct the last hours of their dearly deceased. When Inspector Adams finds a body in an airtight bag, he asks for Ed's help. Ed has doubts: does he want to use his gift in a murder case? When he does get stuck into the case, he becomes entangled in a mix of absurd situations, personal chaos and deep pangs of conscience.

Frank De Jong a timid fraud expert, has lost his faith in the goodness of the world. He gradually discovers a completely different side of himself, a dark side that has never been revealed before. When he decides to team up with his polar opposite Chris De Wulf, he evolves into a mastermind, a wolf in sheep's clothing who is too quick for everyone.

Northern Lights tells the story of two grieving strangers whose worlds collide on a rainy night in Dublin. Revelations, confessions, secrets, and lies envelop this darkly humorous, intimate series of hope.

A troop of scouts arrives at Warnaffe for their big summer camp. Among them, the newest member of the Coyotes patrol, Kevin, a rebellious and lonely boy. From the first evening, he leaves to find something to smoke in the neighbouring village. There he meets Marie with whom it's love at first sight. They spend the night by a lake in a quarry. The next day, still under the influence of drugs, Kevin dives into the lake, discovers a cave, diamonds and a corpse of a young man. This is where problems started.

Judge Claire Delval discovers that her father, Simon Delval, is involved in the corruption case she has been investigating for years. Forced to resign, his place in the Francophone Liberal Party is coveted by the discreet Mark Van Dyck