10 Best Movies Set in or About Sweden

10 Movies Set in or About Sweden

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on Sweden.

1. 

   1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

   2011

   A disgraced journalist and a brilliant, damaged young hacker join forces to solve the decades-old disappearance of a wealthy family's daughter, uncovering a legacy of dark secrets and violence. David Fincher's chilly, gripping adaptation of the Swedish thriller.

   Why & details

   Curator’s note: A Swedish mystery adaptation set around Swedish family history, journalism, and northern estate culture.

2. 

   2. Queen Christina

   1933

   Sweden's beloved, unconventional 17th-century queen finds her duty to the throne at war with her heart when she falls for a Spanish envoy. A romantic historical drama starring Greta Garbo.

3. 

   3. Dance of Death

   1969

   On a bleak island fortress at the turn of the century, a bitter artillery captain and his venomous wife wage relentless psychological warfare on each other and on the visiting cousin caught between them. A searing chamber drama from Strindberg's play.

4. 

   4. Hassan the Rose

   Gül Hasan · 1980

   A blustering film director arrives in Stockholm claiming international fame, secretly a failure hoping to fleece the savings of his hardworking immigrant countrymen. A wry drama of the Turkish immigrant experience in Sweden.

5. 

   5. The Girl from the Marsh Croft

   Das Mädchen vom Moorhof · 1958

   A poor young Swedish woman publicly shamed after a wealthy landowner seduces, impregnates, and abandons her fights for justice and dignity, in a story of love and hardship. A period melodrama from a Selma Lagerlöf tale.

6. 

   6. To Bed or Not to Bed

   Il diavolo · 1963

   A middle-aged Italian fur merchant attending the Stockholm auctions for the first time is bewildered and tempted by the sexual liberation of 1960s Sweden. A gentle Italian sex comedy.

7. 

   7. The Dissidents

   Sangarid · 2017

   In drab 1980s Soviet-era Estonia, three restless young men dreaming of Western freedom pull off a daring escape to Sweden, only to discover the free world is not the paradise they imagined. A wry, bittersweet comedy based on true events.

8. 

   8. Gripsholm

   2000

   A celebrated Weimar-era German writer and his lover retreat for a summer holiday at a Swedish castle, a carefree idyll shadowed by the fascism rising back home. A wistful period drama adapted from Kurt Tucholsky.

9. 

   9. Nutty, Naughty Chateau

   Château en Suède · 1963

   In an old Swedish castle inhabited by a clan of eccentrics still living as if in the 18th century, secrets, deceptions, and whispers of murder swirl around a mysterious guest. A whimsical, stylish comedy of manners.

10. 

    10. Sweden: Heaven and Hell

    Svezia, inferno e paradiso · 1968

    This lurid mondo documentary tours the sexual and social mores of late-1960s Sweden across nine provocative episodes, from free love to darker undercurrents. A sensationalist exploitation film.