The best European crime dramas are on SBS On Demand

Looking for mystery and that impeccable European style? We have you covered with this selection of the best European Crime.

(L - R) Forest of the Missing, Nordland 99, Breaking Point, Antidisturbios Credit: SBS

A juicy crime drama packed with grizzled, grumpy detectives or savvy, sultry investigators is welcome any night of the week. While Nordic Noir has firmly established its icy fingered, vice-like grip on our hearts, it is the broad spectrum of European drama - with its varied, compelling landscapes and characters - that will never go out of style.

SBS On Demand is home to the best in German, French, Spanish, Dutch and Belgian drama and while the range is expansive, and constantly evolving, we have selected some of the gems we wouldn't want you to miss.

Breaking Point

"Breaking Point" Credit: Petro Domenigg / FILMSTILLS.AT K

One of those gems is the thrilling, volatile Breaking Point. The German thriller unfolds over six episodes, in which five strangers' lives intersect at a critical moment that allows none of them to escape unscathed. Security guard Georg is trying to cope with his wife's blindness, troubled Mira is racked with guilt over her affair with the boss and the precarious state of her employment, doctor Sarah is struggling with a secret addition to prescription drugs and simultaneously trying to keep her surgery from going broke, and Lorenz is waiting tables and doing his best to keep his juvenile criminal conviction under wraps. We get to know each of them, and to care about them, but one of them will not handle the pressure and when that breaking point arrives, who will explode?

Breaking Point season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.

Forest of the Missing

Grégory Fitoussi as Erik Maes in ‘Forest of the Missing’. Credit: Alessandro Clemenza

From the urban centre of Breaking Point to the Black Forest, the murder-mystery of Forest of the Missing provides a beautiful, haunting backdrop for its tale of a historic crime that has never solved, and threatens to take more lives in the present. On the border of France and Germany where both nations share a military base, twelve men's bodies are discovered, some of which have been there for decades. Captain Franz Agerland is partnered with police inspector Erik Maes and the brusque, no-nonsense Judge Camille Hartmann ostensibly to solve the murder case, but each of the trio have their own secrets and relationship to this place and these events. Somewhere between the fallibility of memory, trust and its absence, we must choose who to align our allegiances to in this compelling series.

Forest of the Missing season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.

Bonn

Otto John (Sebastian Blomberg),Toni (Mercedes Müller), Gerd Schmidt (Juergen Maurer) in Bonn, Foto: Kai Schulz Credit: Kai Schulz/© Kai Schulz

When it comes to aligning allegiances, that conundrum forms the heart of Bonn. Toni Schmidt (Mercedes Müller) is defiantly ambitious, and she'll pay a price for it. The young upstart, undeterred by West Germany's male-dominated society circa 1954, can see a life of grandeur beyond her mundane job as a foreign-language secretary in a national secret service department, one of two in competition for intelligence and domination. The six-episode production has plenty of cred, written and helmed by award-winning director Claudia Garde and based on an original idea by Gerrit Hermans. Hermans was inspired by the true story of two German secret services based in Bonn, in which former Nazis from each organisation battled for supremacy as German chancellor Konrad Adenauer sought to mobilise a secret army to battle the Russians. When Toni is approached by the director of the other secret service to act as a double agent to oust several war criminals within her organisation, it results in a life-or-death, riveting tale of competing loyalties.

Bonn season 1 is streaming at SBS On Demand from 21 September.

Nordland ‘99

Nordland '99

The criminals live amongst the ordinary folk in a provincial town in Danish drama Nordland ‘99. Take a group of wayward, restless teens, limit them to a small town, and drama is bound to ensue as they endeavour to create their own entertainment. In Denmark's Nordland '99, director Kasper Moller Rask channeled his own passion for Twin Peaks and the quirky gothic stylings of the Coen brothers into his own crime series. When Alex disappears after a party, his friends Lukas and Kris team up with Alex's sister Emma to find their friend. It ripples with immediacy: blunt, realistic dialogue partnered with unpolished and direct camera angles that favour intimacy over perfection. Rask gave his young actors two takes per scene as a maximum to ensure there was a rawness to their performances. What Nordland '99 achieves is a portrait of teenage loyalty and friendship, but even more so, the way that youth can perceive the dark truths of their town despite how hard older generations work to keep their skeletons in the closet.

Nordland '99 season 1 is streaming now at SBS On Demand.

Elvira

Sara Klein Larsen stars as Elvira. Source: SBS

Like the teens of Nordland '99 who are thrown into the roles of mystery solvers, Elvira Gregersen becomes an investigator of crimes through circumstance rather than any genuine qualifications. Sara Klein Larsen is Elvira, the receptionist at a Copenhagen brothel where she has a mind-numbingly predictable daily routine. After her usual cleaning and money collection duties at work, she arrives home to look after her painfully needy, drug-addicted younger brother Sixten (Anton Hjejle). If you're noticing a theme amongst these hand-picked European crime dramas, it's not an accident. Split allegiances and divided loyalties are the fodder of fantastic dramatic climaxes. The question of where to place her allegiance falls upon Elvira when her boss and friend, corrupt cop Koster (Peter Plaugborg), is owed money by one of the brothel's sex workers, Candy. Candy has disappeared though, and two sadistic gangsters ("The Swedes") are impatiently demanding that missing 50,000 krone. Simple, according to Elvira. She'll find Candy, collect the money and hand it over to Koster, and this whole debacle will be forgotten. But, of course, nothing is so simple and once Elvira commits to her search for Candy, she irrevocably sets a series of catastrophes in motion that endanger her friends and family and test their loyalty to one another.

Elvira season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.

Algiers Confidential

Ralf Eley (Ken Duken), Bernard Verley (Claude Rigal) in Algiers Confidential ©Sife.Elamine Credit: Distributor

While Elvira's life goes from mundanity to total turmoil overnight, Ralf Eley (Ken Duken) doesn't have the luxury of mundanity. The German police investigator is on assignment at the German embassy in Algiers where he has inadvisably begun a secretive affair with Algerian prosecutor, the stunning and astute Hania Amar (Amel Samraoui). It is a relationship that threatens the impartiality of legal procedures that both are party to, and it is clear from the very first moments of Algiers Confidential that this doomed love affair is going to lead to disaster. Hania has been raised by General Soudani, whose protective instincts are brutal. When he calls upon Ralf to investigate a German arms dealer and his security expert who have been taken hostage, a tangle of nefarious types emerge with vested interests in both helping or obstructing Ralf's work: corrupt German government officials, rival arms dealers, and an Algerian terrorist group. Beyond the intricate plot and intriguing characters, there is Algeria. It is a stunning palette of deeply saturated blues, oranges and greens that teases any viewers - like me - who are stuck inside on a freezing, rainy evening wishing for a Moroccan summer.

Algiers Confidential season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand, but hurry it will be leaving 30 September.

Antidisturbios

‘Antidisturbios’. Source: SBS

Antidisturbios is distinctly not a travel brochure. While both Australia and the UK have a strong history of police dramas that most viewers are familiar with, Spain brings its A-game with the snakepit of corruption and cover-ups that form the dramatic core of Antidisturbios. The Antidisturbios are the Madrid-based riot police, a group of six members that are under internal investigation after an eviction goes horrendously wrong, resulting in the death of an African immigrant living in Lavapies. Was this an accident or outright racism and manslaughter? Is there one bad apple, or does this incident indicate a systemic, inherent violence and racism within the police force? Internal affairs investigator Laia Urquijo (Vicky Luengo) must battle to untangle the truth in Isabel Pena and Rodrigo Sorogoyen's clever, savage series. The hard-bitten, sneering epitome of toxic masculinity, Salvador Osorio (Hovik Keuchkerian) leads a pack of men who shamelessly snort cocaine, stalk former girlfriends, and suffer anxiety attacks. It’s gritty, it’s grizzly, and it’s brilliantly unflinching.

Antidisturbios season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.

Exterior Night

Exterior Night Credit: ANNA CAMERLINGO

Less savage than Antidisturbios, but no less incisive, is the Italian drama Exterior Night, which opens up the world of civil unrest and political machinations in a 1978 battle for power that extends beyond the battling Christian Democracy and the Italian Communist parties to involve the Vatican and the Red Brigades. When president of the Christian Democracy, Aldo Moro (Fabrizio Gifuni) is drugged and kidnapped during the process of forming a new cabinet, the onus is on the Minister of the Interior, Francesco Cossiga (Fausto Russo Alesi), to obtain Moro's freedom. Over six thrilling episodes, Cossiga must negate precarious territory with the Pope (Toni Servillo), the Red Brigades and their own internal battle over what to do with Moro, and Moro's wife Eleonora (Margherita Buy). Will Aldo be released, and at what cost? Based on true historical events, this triumphant telling owes its prowess to co-writer and director Marco Bellocchio.

Exterior Night season 1 is now streaming at SBS On Demand.

Want more? Explore the full BEST OF EUROPEAN CRIME COLLECTION at SBS On Demand.