Best Danish thriller movies

When aspiring model Jesse moves to Los Angeles, her youth and vitality are devoured by a group of beauty-obsessed women who will take any means necessary to get what she has.

Failed architect, engineer and vicious murderer Jack narrates the details of some of his most elaborately orchestrated crimes, each of them a towering piece of art that defines his life's work as a serial killer for twelve years.

Mikael Blomkvist, publisher of Millennium magazine, has made his living exposing the crooked and corrupt practices of establishment Swedish figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with a meticulously researched thesis about sex trafficking in Sweden and those in high office who abuse underage girls, Blomkvist immediately throws himself into the investigation.

Police officer Asger Holm, demoted to desk work as an alarm dispatcher, answers a call from a panicked woman who claims to have been kidnapped. Confined to the police station and with the phone as his only tool, Asger races against time to get help and find her.

Markus returns home to care for his daughter when his wife dies in a tragic train accident. However, when a survivor of the wreck surfaces and claims foul play, Markus suspects his wife was murdered and embarks on a mission to find those responsible.

A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in a hospital and is set to face trial for attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must prove her innocence. In doing this she plays against powerful enemies and her own past.

When beautiful young Grace arrives in the isolated township of Dogville, the small community agrees to hide her from a gang of ruthless gangsters, and, in return, Grace agrees to do odd jobs for the townspeople.

Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother's recent death.

A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

Denmark, 2013. Police officers Carl Mørck and Hafez el-Assad, sole members of Department Q, which is focused on closing cold cases, investigate the disappearance of politician Merete Lynggaard, vanished when she and her brother were traveling aboard a ferry five years ago.

Denmark, 2014. A former police officer asks Carl Mørck, head of Department Q, to find out who brutally killed his young twins in 1994. Although a local inhabitant confessed and was convicted of murder, Carl and his partner Assad soon realize that there is something in the case resolution that is terribly wrong.

Denmark, 2016. A blurred note is found in a bottle that has traveled across the ocean for a long time. After deciphering the cryptic note, Department Q follow a sinister trail that leads them to investigate a case that occurred in 2008. At the same time, new tragic events take place that test their faith and deepest beliefs.

Upstanding community leader Nils has just won an award for "Citizen of the Year" when he learns the news that his son has died of a heroin overdose. Suspecting foul play, Nils begins to investigate, and soon finds himself at the center of an escalating underworld gang war between Serbian drug dealers and a sociopathic criminal mastermind known only as “The Count.”

Copenhagen, 2018. A frightening discovery is made in an old apartment. The subsequent investigation of Department Q leads them to an infamous institution for girls that was suddenly closed in the early sixties.

An armored car driver tries to elude a gang of thieves while a flood ravages the countryside.

Tom and Anna Wright, a young American couple, fall into severe debt while renovating Tom's family home in London. As the couple faces the loss of their dream to have a house and start a family, they discover that the tenant in the apartment below them is dead, and he's left behind a stash of cash—$400,000 worth. Though initially hesitant, Tom and Anna decide that the plan is simple: all they have to do is quietly take the money and use only what's necessary to get them out of debt. But when they start spending the money and can't seem to stop, they find themselves the target of a deadly adversary—the thief who stole it—and that's when very bad things start happening to good people.

A journalist descends into the dark underbelly of the Iranian holy city of Mashhad as she investigates the serial killings of sex workers by the so called "Spider Killer", who believes he is cleansing the streets of sinners.

The thin line between love and hate turns deadly when a wife discovers her husband’s affair — and they both take extreme measures to get what they want.

Tensions are high after a Danish freighter is captured and held for ransom by Somali pirates, leading to weeks of high-stakes negotiations – and an escalating potential for explosive violence.

Milo is aging, he is planning his daughter's 25th birthday, and his shipment of heroin turns out to be 10,000 pills of ecstasy. When Milo tries to sell the pills anyway, all Hell breaks loose and his only chance is to ask for help from his ex-henchman and old friend Radovan.

When JW becomes a drug runner in order to maintain his double life, his fate becomes tied to two other men: Jorge, a fugitive on the run from both the Serbian mafia and the police, and mafia enforcer Mrado, who is on the hunt for Jorge.

Martin, a law student, takes up a job as a nightwatchman at a mortuary to fund his studies. But the mortuary harbours a dark secret, and he has to find the truth before he is implicated in a serial murder case.

A young, idealist American gets a job as a train conductor for the Zentropa railway network in postwar, US-occupied Frankfurt. As various people try to take advantage of him, he soon finds his position politically sensitive, and gets caught up in a whirlpool of conspiracies and Nazi sympathisers.

In the near future, oil reserves are nearly depleted and Europe is connected by series of underground tunnels. While navigating these tunnels, Roger hears voices, one in particular. Seeking a way to rid himself of the voice only leads Roger deeper into a bizarre conspiracy of control - mind and body.

A fisherman's son is offered the ultimate privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the epicenter of power of Sunni Islam. Shortly after his arrival, the university’s highest ranking religious leader, the Grand Imam, dies and the young student becomes a pawn in a ruthless power struggle between Egypt's religious and political elite.

Four kayakers take the wrong river into a jungle inhabited by a tribe of merciless cannibals.

Zaid is a successful heart surgeon with an expensive apartment and pregnant girlfriend. One night he gets a visit from his brother Yasin, who is desperate for money, but he refuses. Soon after, Yasin is found beaten to death and Zaid is overcome with guilt. As guilt gives way to anger, Zaid becomes a masked avenger and takes on Copenhagen's criminal underworld in his quest for justice.

Jackie is a CCTV operator. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor, a man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.

Smilla Jaspersen attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla uncovers a trail of clues leading towards a secretive corporation that has made several mysterious expeditions to Greenland.

After Ingrid leaves John, he allows himself to be pulled into a mystical and scary world where it is impossible to separate truth from lies.

Martin's daughter, Emma, takes up a night watch job to find out what happened to her parents almost thirty years ago. A meeting with Wörmer in his cell pulls the serial killer out of his coma and sets in motion a chain of fateful events.

In the future, chaos is rampant as 'information terrorists' threaten to destroy order in society. Alex is a part-man, part-machine LAPD cop who is the best at what he does. When one of the terrorists calls him a machine, Alex questions his humanity and decides to leave the force. His final assignment is to apprehend an old colleague who has stolen some data. However, there is more than meets the eye and Alex must question his allegiance.

A family of four is quarantined in their home as a virulent strand of the flu spreads into town and they are forced to the extreme to escape alive.

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

When a homeless Romani boy is arrested at the Danish border for possession of a missing public servant's passport, police inspector Carl Mørck and Department Q are tasked with finding the connection.

In a moment of cowardice, Detective Carl Mørck sends Rose, his junior colleague in Department Q, to the remote Danish island of Bornholm to answer his old colleague Christian Habersaat's repeated requests. But during his forced retirement ceremony Christian kills himself sending Rose into a journey deep into her own traumatic past. Later, Department Q are embroiled into an old cold case of a girl found dead hanging in a tree.

6th-grader Terkel begins experiencing a streak of bad luck after sitting on a black spider. His teacher dies and is replaced by the strange Justin. At home, Terkel's Uncle Stewart erupts in sporadic fits of rage, and at school Terkel is bullied by two boys after they learn that fat Doris likes him. On a school camping trip, Terkel begins receiving death threats and must figure out who wants to kill him.

The last wish of the dying "Monk" is for his foster child, Harald, to find his real son, Ludvig. But the latter is currently in a Swedish prison cell...

Renowned psychologist Susanne (Signe Egholm Olsen) is caught in a living nightmare when her new client (Anton Hjejle) turns out to be a wanted serial killer.

'The Angel Maker' is a psychological crime thriller following Laura, a cyber crimes detective pursuing a brutal serial killer.

Rie is a PR-coordinator visiting a tunnel boring machine to portray the well-oiled European cooperation in the Metro construction when an accident suddenly occurs. Unable to escape, she takes refuge in an airlock with Croatian miner Ivo and Bharan, a worker from Eritrea.

Seven years ago, Zaid went to war against the Copenhagen underworld to avenge his dead brother. His identity as a respected doctor of cardiology and life as a family man is but a fading dream, and in prison Zaid suffers the loss of his son Noah, whom he barely knows. When a police agent approaches Zaid and offers him a deal to be released in exchange for infiltrating the Copenhagen underworld, he sees his chance to reclaim the remnants of the family life he left behind. But everything has a price, and Zaid realizes that he has now seriously endangered his son's life. After all, once you become part of the underworld, is there any way out?

Robert Hansen, 34, a young police officer from Copenhagen, is transferred against his will to the small town of Skarrild in Southern Jutland as a substitute Marshall. The transfer is Robert’s chance to start over. Whether he is allowed to return to his job in Copenhagen, all depends on how well he performs in this frontier town.

Successful businesswoman Maria has achieved everything except what she wants the most - a baby of her own. She decides to deal with the matter by herself and embarks on a desperate and dangerous journey in order to make her dream come true.

Jonas is a Copenhagen homicide scene photographer, happily married, with two kids. One day, his car stalls, another car slams into him, runs head on into a third car and flips into the ditch. The other driver, Julia, is critically injured. He visits her in the hospital and is greeted by her family, who assumes he must be the Sebastian she told them about, the new fiance she met in Vietnam.

A renowned health supplement company, run by a ruthless businesswoman, is selecting and abducting young women as part of an experiment bio-hacking babies’ DNA to enable her clients to reverse the aging process. When Mia goes to investigate, she finds herself trapped, branded and tortured in a grim underground facility. Familiar faces start to appear, and she realises that she is not alone in this. Can she somehow find inner strength and escape from the nightmare?

Insurance broker Max's life is about one thing - keeping his walnut brain tumour in check. He eats properly, exercises and lives properly, but all of this self-consciousness makes him more and more depressed. When he realises that his beloved wife plans to leave him, he decides to take his own life.

The story of two lovers and their attempts to save their relationship in a near-future world on the brink of cosmic collapse. John, and world-famous ice skating star, Elena, are about to sign divorce papers when they realise that, in spite of everything happening around them, their love is worth fighting for. It's All About Love is a fresh take on modern love and future life as two lovers struggle in a conspiracy of epic proportions.

The psychological thriller "Murk" tells the story of Jacob, who is investigating into the circumstances surrounding his sister's death on her wedding night.

Eva, an idealistic prison officer, is faced with the dilemma of her life when a young man from her past gets transferred to the prison where she works. Without revealing her secret, Eva asks to be moved to the young man’s ward – the toughest and most violent in the prison. Here begins an unsettling psychological thriller, where Eva’s sense of justice puts both her morality and future at stake.

Karsten Aslaksen, chief engineer of a large chemical company, disappears without trace. His married lover, a successful politician named Vibeke Farang, approaches private investigator Varg Veum to track him down discreetly.

An insane Swedish farmer escapes from an asylum to get revenge on his sister, her husband and others.

After extricating 17-year-old Lisa Halle from a life of prostitution in Copenhagen, private investigator Varg Veum becomes ensnared in a tangle of parental neglect and bad love when he is hired to locate Lisa's boyfriend, Peter Werner.

A woman wakes up in a river. Wounded and without memory, then races to elude mysterious followers and recover from amnesia.

Martin Vinge, former notorious journalist, now successful headhunter with a complicated personal life, is in all confidentiality contacted by 85 year-old N.F. Sieger, S.E.O. of Denmark's largest shipping company and oil empire. Sieger hires Martin to find an alternative heir to the firm instead of his son, Daniel Sieger, who for a long time has been destined to take the company into the next era. Martin starts coming up with suitable names for the position, but discovers that he has actually been entangled in a larger impenetrable power game aimed at deciding what is really going to happen to the company; a brutal power struggle that puts an intense pressure on Martin and his private life and relationships.

Ulrik Torp, once a fearless investigative journalist who is now tackling unemployment and a midlife crisis. He finds himself in the middle of a new political conspiracy.

A whistle blower attempts to reveal the secret behind a nuclear disaster that occurred during the height of the Cold War.

Jonas Bechmann, a defense attorney, is a man of the system. Until the day he himself is accused of murder. Taking matters into his own hands, he throws himself into the hunt for a group of blackmailers who threaten to expose him as the killer. But nothing is what it appears to be, and the blackmail links back to his father's death under mysterious circumstances a year and a half earlier.

Copenhagen, Denmark, 1951. Criminal investigator Anders Olsen follows the case of a bank robber who eyewitnesses say appears to have been acting under some kind of trance.

Starting a new job as a political journalist at a leading newspaper, Ulrik Torp witnesses a brutal struggle for power in the Midparty's ranks -- a struggle that coincides with the charismatic party leader's involvement in a near fatal car accident. A flurry of lies and media speculation surrounds the incident. Gradually, Ulrik unearths a ruthless conspiracy involving the incumbent prime minister.

Denmark, in the near future. One year after a major bomb attack in Copenhagen, political radicalization has intensified and ethnic tensions are increasing. As next year's parliamentary elections approach, in which nationalist leader Martin Nordahl hopes for a landslide victory, Zakaria becomes involved in a radical organization, where he befriends Ali.

Jakob Aasen has hired his old friend, private investigator Varg Veum, to spy on his wife Rebecca, whom he suspects of infidelity. Against his better judgement Varg accepts the job, and in an ironic twist he and Rebecca rekindle their former love. Meanwhile a serial killer is targeting members of Jacob's band and their families...

A former sailor who has served prison sentences for alcohol smuggling fights to keep his family afloat. He is offered pay for a last tour of cargo between Reykjavik and Rotterdam. He agrees, in the hope to get out of debt, but unexpected events occur.

Private eye Varg Veum is on a routine mission searching for his client Jonas Andresen's stolen car. The car is found having been used in a brutal robbery and not long after that the client himself turns up dead.