There’s nothing like crime in a cold climate. Snow on the ground and a chill in the air always raises the stakes; if nothing else, it’s a lot harder to go on the run when a night spent out in the open could be your last. In the drama series in SBS On Demand's , the bodies might be on ice but the action is just heating up.
The Bridge
Finding a body on a bridge exactly halfway between Denmark and Sweden is only the beginning for the single-minded and socially awkward Sewdish cop Saga Noren (Sofia Helin) - for one thing, the body is actually two different corpses put together. What follows, both in the first season and the three more that followed, is one of the classics of crime television. The Bridge is a series that helped define Nordic noir, and if you haven’t seen it before, it’s a must. If you have, there’s never been a better time (or season) to get reacquainted.
All four seasons of The Bridge are streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
The Bridge
series • Crime drama • Danish
MA15+
series • Crime drama • Danish
MA15+
Wisting
Based on the best-selling crime novels by former detective Jørn Lier Horst, Wisting is Norway’s biggest – and most expensive – drama series ever. Detective William Wisting (Sven Nordin) is a dogged investigator and committed father (even when his journalist daughter keeps getting tangled up in his cases) who’s tackled serial killers, teamed up with an FBI agent played by Carrie-Anne Moss, and hunted down an escapee through some of Norway’s most isolated locations. It’s slightly more-action focused than your usual Nordic Noir, which means plenty of stunning scenery as Wisting hunts his suspects through the stark and snowy settings. In the third season, a shocking crime in the town square and a body pulled from the river sees Wisting tackle the most challenging case of his career.
The newly-arrived S3 Part 1 is streaming now at SBS On Demand, along with seasons 1 and 2:
Stream free On Demand
Wisting
series • Crime drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
series • Crime drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
Bloodlands
Two decades ago, DCI Brannick (James Nesbett) lost his wife to an IRA assassin codenamed Goliath. Now he’s part of an investigation looking back at those turbulent times in Northern Ireland, and there’s a lot of people – including Brannick himself – who’d rather the past stay buried. Nesbett is always good value in crime series, and here he’s playing the kind of morally shifty cop that gives him a lot to work with. He even gets to do some film noir-style flirting with a femme fatale in the second season, where a missing shipment of IRA gold stirs up a whole lot of trouble.
Both seasons of Bloodlands are streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
Bloodlands
series • crime
MA15+
series • crime
MA15+
Snow
No icy crime collection would be complete without a series titled Snow. Unfortunately for the German resort town of Rotten, climate change means snow is currently thin on the ground. Worse, the local glacier is melting, dumping a decades-old corpse on the town’s doorstep. For the newly returned Dr Lucia (Brigitte Hobmeier), the mountain air was supposed to help her daughter’s breathing. But now her daughter is missing, her father is leading a push for a development that would trash the mountain’s pristine environment, and the local legend of a supernatural guardian suddenly doesn’t seem quite so fantastic.
Snow is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
Snow
series • miniseries • German
M
series • miniseries • German
M
Piste Noir
Les Clairies is a fancy ski resort in the French Alps – the kind of place where elite athletes and the super-rich mingle on the slopes and in expensive hotels while the migrant workers live in caravans hidden around the back. But when a mysterious fire claims the life of one of those workers, it’s up to out-of-town detective Émilie Karras (Constance Labbé) and veteran local police officer Loïc Servoz (Thibault de Montalembert) to delve into the tangled web of drugs and crime that lies beneath the gleaming snow. Émilie grew up on the mountain and never wanted to return; now she’s investigating a case where the clues increasingly point to the family she left behind.
Piste Noir is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
Piste Noire
series • crime • French
M
series • crime • French
M
DNA
Five years ago, criminal investigator Rolf Larsen (Anders W Berthelsen) lost his daughter overboard during a ferry trip. Or did he? Now he’s investigating an international people smuggling ring, and thanks to flaws in Denmark’s DNA registry he’s starting to wonder if his own child might have fallen prey to something equally sinister. What he uncovers will send him across Europe and into the continent’s darkest corners. But after so many years apart, and with the loss having shattered his personal life, what hope does he have of rebuilding his life even if he does find his daughter alive?
Seasons 1 and 2 of DNA are streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
DNA
series • Crime drama • Danish
MA15+
series • Crime drama • Danish
MA15+
Freezing Embrace
Chief Inspector Hautalehto (Mikko Leppilamme) is in charge of law and order in the tiny Finnish town of Porvoo. It’s a surprisingly big job: young men are turning up dead in the town’s icy river almost every week, and the finger of suspicion is pointing at one of his own officers. It’d be a tough case for an investigator at the top of his game, but Hautalehto is a man with more than just solving crime on his mind. His home life is falling apart, and he’s taken to running to work in his socks despite the subzero temperatures. If the mystery doesn’t finish him off, maybe the frostbite will.
Freezing Embrace is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
Freezing Embrace
series • drama • Finnish
MA15+
series • drama • Finnish
MA15+
The Forest of the Missing
A car accident a year ago left French judge Camille Hartmann (Hélène de Fougerolles) with her memory in tatters and her career on hold. When a mass grave is uncovered in the German Black Forest near the border with France, she feels a connection to the crime though she can’t explain why. She makes herself part of the investigation headed up by Inspector Erik Maes (Gregory Fitoussi) and Captain Franz Agerland (Tcheky Karyo), hoping to find both the killer and herself. What she uncovers stretches back 30 years and ties back to her – and her family – in ways she never could have predicted.
Forest of the Missing is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
Stream free On Demand
Forest Of The Missing
series • thriller • French
MA15+
series • thriller • French
MA15+
Dead Mountain
The real-life deaths of nine experienced Russian hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959 is a mystery that’s never been fully explained. This series is split between the full-colour investigation by (fictional) KGB Major Oleg Kostin (Piotr Fyodorov) and medical examiner Katya Shumanova (Mariya Lugovaya), and the black and white episodes that recreate the hikers’ frozen ordeal. It’s a compelling mix of fact and fiction (and there’s a lot of possible explanations for the series to choose from) that works both as a gripping mystery and as a haunting recreation.
Dead Mountain - The Dyatlov Pass Incident is streaming now at SBS On Demand:
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