Dark crimes, icy landscapes and morally ambiguous detectives are heading back to screen as Nordic Noir continues to influence crime television around the world.

Nordic Noir, also known as Scandi Noir, is a crime and thriller genre known for spare, bleak settings, morally complex characters and twisty mysteries. Many of the genre’s most influential projects began as bestselling Scandinavian novels.

Booked & Screened previously covered three popular Scandi Noir series to check out. Here are more projects set to hit screens in 2026 and later.

‘Nocturne’

Liev Schreiber, Zazie Beetz and Stephen Graham star in the Nordic Noir adaptation “Nocturne.” The 10-episode drama is an adaptation of the 2012 thriller “The Sandman,” written by Lars Kepler, the pseudonym of husband-wife team Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril. “Nocturne” also stars Bill Camp, Rory Culkin, Chrissy Metz, Poorna Jagannathan and Gary Carr. John Hlavin and Rowan Joffe serve as co-showrunners. The series will stream on Apple TV on Oct. 30.

‘Dept. Q’ Season 2

Netflix’s British 2025 crime drama series premiered in 2025 and is based on the bestselling “Department Q” novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. 

Matthew Goode stars as Detective Carl Morck, who after his partner was paralyzed and another officer from his previous department is killed, gets sent to work at Dept. Q in Edinburgh, Scotland. His new job is to solve cold cases with a crew of oddball investigators. 

Season 2 will film this year and is expected to premiere in late 2027 or early 2028.

‘Blood on Snow’

Based on the 2014 novel by Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø, the upcoming crime thriller stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Eva Green and Emma Laird.

The story follows a hitman who falls for the woman he’s been hired to kill. Cary Joji Fukunaga, the director of Season 1 of “True Detective” will helm the film. It is expected to premiere in 2027. 

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’

A new TV adaptation of Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s bestselling novels is in development at Sky Studios. The series is described as a contemporary reimagining of the Nordic noir classic centered on hacker Lisbeth Salander. David Oyelowo (“Silo”) and Viola Prettejohn (“The Crown”) will star as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander. Reinaldo Marcus Green will direct the eight-part mystery thriller.

David Oyelowo and Viola Prettejohn will star as journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series. Photo: Misan Harriman/Michael Shelford

The novels were previously adapted into a Swedish film trilogy starring Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace beginning in 2009 and a 2011 U.S. film starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

Kristoffer Bark series

Swedish crime writer Anna Jansson’s Kristoffer Bark series is being adapted into a trilogy of films. The first installment adapts the fifth book in the series, 2023’s “May Eternity Forgive.” 

It’s scheduled to film in 2026 and release in theaters in 2027.

“This will truly be Örebro, Kilsbergen, and Hällefors—forests, lakes, mines, and cave systems, interwoven with the university’s own universe—in a series of both dramatic and everyday events,” Jansson said.

Recent Nordic thrillers you might’ve missed

‘The Secret Woman’

“The Secret Woman” premiered on Netflix on Aug. 28. Based on the novel of the same name written by Anna Ekberg—the pseudonym for Danish author duo Anders Rønnow Klarlund and Jacob Weinreich—the film follows Louise Andersen, who lives on a Norwegian island with her partner and runs a cafe. 

The logline says: “Suddenly, her idyllic world shatters when a strange man enters the café and claims that she is not who she believes she is. He asserts that she is a woman who disappeared from Denmark three years earlier, leaving her husband searching for her ever since.”  

‘The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek’

Netflix’s sequel to “The Chestnut Man” premiered May 7. The six-part series is based on Danish writer Søren Sveistrup’s 2018 novel of the same name. Season 1 of the series premiered in 2021.

“The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek” is the sequel based on Sveistrup’s novel “Hide and Seek,” which became available in the United States on July 7. Sveistrup also created the acclaimed Danish crime series “The Killing.”

‘Detective Hole’

Jo Nesbø’s 2003 novel “The Devil’s Star” came to the screen on March 26 as “Detective Hole.” Starring Tobias Santelmann as troubled detective Harry Hole opposite Joel Kinnaman as his adversary, corrupt cop Tom Waaler, the series is streaming on Netflix. There was a past adaptation on the detective, a 2017 movie based on Nesbø’s first Hole novel “The Snowman,” starring Michael Fassbender.

About the writer

S. Lynn Bonanno was introduced to the beauty of bleak thrillers by her husband—who also got her into “Dexter,” but the writer digresses. He read “The Chestnut Man” years ago and the pair are currently watching Season 1.