Netflix Is Proving There’s More to the Nordics Than Noir

Netflix looked to have adopted the tried and tested Nordic noir formula when they dropped their first original from the Northern European region in 2018. But despite its title and resolutely bleak setting, there wasn’t a sullen detective, twisty homicide case or desirable woolly jumper to be found. Instead, The Rain was a post-apocalyptic tale about two siblings emerging from a bunker six years after a precipitous virus had virtually wiped out the Scandinavian population.

Arriving in the same year that The Maze Runner franchise executed its exit strategy and the Divergent series was officially put out of its misery, the Danish hit proved that there was still an appetite for serialized teen dystopia: The Rain was recommissioned for a further two seasons before wrapping up, rather presciently, in the middle of a real-life pandemic. More importantly, it showed to a global audience that Nordic TV exists outside the confines of the gritty crime drama.

Netflix themselves had previously been guilty of perpetuating the familiar. Its only Finnish acquisitions, Bordertown and Deadwind, were very much steeped in the Nordic noir tradition. Likewise early exclusives from Norway (Borderliner), Denmark (Warrior) and Iceland (Case). Even some of their English-language output had roots in the genre – see the rather unnecessary fourth season revival of The Killing (an adaptation of Forbrydelsen), for example, or the Young Wallander prequel series based on Henning Mankell’s best-selling novels.

And let’s not forget what was dubbed as their very first original. Norwegian co-production Lilyhammer saw Steven Van Zandt – essentially reprising his mobster character in The Sopranos – join the witness protection program in a wintry town which despite its sleepy appearance is no stranger to criminality itself.

You can understand why the streaming giant wanted a piece of the Nordic pie. Forbrydelsen achieved recognition at both the International Emmys and BAFTAs. And from America’s True Detective to the UK’s Broadchurch to Australia’s Top of the Lake, every acclaimed crime drama of the ‘10s appeared to take cues from its brooding season-long mystery.

Yet the success of The Rain gave Netflix the impetus to let in a little more Northern light. In 2019, it premiered Home for Christmas, an Oslo-based rom-com about a thirtysomething nurse’s quest to find a boyfriend in time for the festivities. Just a month later, Ragnarok combined Norse mythology, high school drama and environmental concerns for a socially-conscious alternative to Riverdale. And then Norway jumped on the horror anthology bandwagon with Bloodride, six entertaining half-hour scarefests all interlinked by a bus ride destined for Hell.

Not to be outdone, Sweden served up Love and Anarchy, a workplace dramedy about an uncontrollable game of dare which leads to everything from Cyndi Lauper cosplay and cannabis-spiked desserts: there are traces of Germany’s cringe classic Toni Erdmann in the way it leaves you hiding behind the sofa in second hand embarrassment.

The upcoming slate of Swedish originals sound just as intriguing. Anyone suffering from The Crown withdrawal symptoms will probably be tempted by Young Royals, the story of a wayward prince who must choose between his personal life and professional duty. Any similarities to Mr. Meghan Markle are apparently purely coincidental.

We’re also looking forward to comedy Anxious People, which like the Oscar-nominated A Man Called Ove, is adapted from a Fredrik Backman novel. Here, a rich banker, expectant couple and fearless octogenarian are just a few of the potential buyers taken hostage during an open house that turns into an unexpected magic act. Clark, a biopic of the gangster whose actions inadvertently helped to coin the phrase “Stockholm syndrome” starring Bill Skarsgård and directed by music video maestro Jonas Åkerlund, promises to be a must-watch, too, as does Untold, the dramatized story of Sweden’s biggest cultural export of recent times, Spotify.

Speaking to The Guardian earlier this year, Swedish-based SF Studios’ head of film/TV production Tim King acknowledged that Netflix’s investment in Nordic programming has been a godsend to creatives uninterested in painstaking police work: “It’s woken everyone up who dreamed of doing horror, sci-fi, anything. Suddenly there’s an outlet and somebody who’s willing to bet on it.”

The service has wagered quite a bit on The Rain‘s co-creators Christian Potalivo and Jannik Tai Mosholt, in particular. A second young adult drama from the pair has already been greenlit, with Chosen centering on a young girl’s discovery that her hometown’s meteor strike 17 years previously may have been a cover-up. The Danes will also serve as executive producers on Elves, a festive horror in which a vacationing family disrupt a town populated by both religious zealots and the titular folk legends.

We’ve not even mentioned The Karate Kid‘s Norwegian-Dutch director Harald Zwart and his untitled horror comedy about a teenage vampire’s macabre attempt to keep her brother’s ailing funeral service in business. Or Netflix’s first Icelandic original, supernatural drama Katla, in which a subglacial volcanic eruption unleashes a series of mysteries from beneath its icy surface, a show which has been firmly lodged in the Netflix Top 10 since its debut.

Of course, Netflix haven’t completely abandoned the obsession with slow-burning murder investigations set where the sun doesn’t shine. Forbrydelsen screenwriter Søren Sveistrup will adapt his own novel, The Chestnut Man, about a killer with a unique calling card for a new Danish miniseries, and you don’t need to do much sleuthing to figure out what Sweden’s forthcoming The Unlikely Murderer is about.

Curiously, according to one unnamed Netflix executive, Nordic natives aren’t necessarily interested in homegrown content. But the rest of the world, whether crime drama aficionados or not, are now becoming much more enthused.

Jon O’Brien (@jonobrien81) is a freelance entertainment and sports writer from the North West of England. His work has appeared in the likes of Vulture, Esquire, Billboard, Paste, i-D and The Guardian.