Ewa Fröling

One can't help wondering whether, some quarter-century ago, Carsten Brandt had the slightest inkling of the epic dimension the project he was then starting to conceive – The Gentle Pain – would take on in the subsequent decades. For it became epic in just about every sense of the word: the film is very long; it tells a multi-layered story characterised as much by its digressions as by its main narrative thread, which concerns a filmmaker’s attempts to make sense of the life of Thorkild Hansen, a Danish traveller/historian/writer internationally probably best known for his non-fiction novel Processen mod Hamsun (1978); and it took a long time to finish – and then sat on a shelf due to legal battles galore. What is now finally revealed is a monument of modern(ist) cinema: a work that as much charts one man’s journey into his soul as a voyage of discovery into another artist’s mind.

The working class girl from Landala, Gothenburg, through the fine art of theatre and all the way to Hollywood.

7.4/10

Basia and Marek have been on the run their whole lives. Along with their nine-year-old daughter Ula, they experience what it’s like to be an immigrant in Sweden. When a Swedish social worker visits their home, she witnesses Ula’s everyday reality, as seen from the perspective of the local culture. Ula is then taken away from her parents and placed in foster care. Will Basia and Marek stick together and fight for Ula? Will they succeed in rebuilding their bond and their family?

6.3/10

Johanna works as a journalist on a women magazine. But her boss is an idiot, her salary is ridiculous and her husband has left her for a younger woman. With a great life crisis she decided to try a new medicine.

5.4/10

Detectives and best friends Andreas and Simon lead vastly different lives; Andreas has settled down with his beautiful wife and son; while Simon, recently divorced, spends most of his waking hours getting drunk at the local strip club. But all that changes when the two of them are called out to a domestic dispute between a junkie couple, caught in a vicious cycle of violence and drugs. It all looks very routine – until Andreas finds the couple's infant son, crying in a closet. The usually collected policeman finds himself confronted with his own powerlessness and is shaken to his core. As Andreas slowly loses his grip on justice, it suddenly becomes up to the unruly Simon to restore the balance between right and wrong.

6.8/10
5.2%

After a year abroad Estelle returns home to collect her husband's share of the loot from a major robbery.

5/10

Bäst före is the story of three swedish men.

4.9/10

An accident overthrows Ernst and Cecilia's well-ordered life. Chance rules in Ernst's rational world while Cecilia is searching for a deeper meaning in what has happened. As they drift further and further apart a mysterious stranger with exceptional gifts changes their lives in an unexpected way.

5.1/10

Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece

7.8/10

Jonas is a Copenhagen homicide scene photographer, happily married, with two kids. One day, his car stalls, another car slams into him, runs head on into a third car and flips into the ditch. The other driver, Julia, is critically injured. He visits her in the hospital and is greeted by her family, who assumes he must be the Sebastian she told them about, the new fiance she met in Vietnam.

7.2/10
7.4%

Short documentary featuring interviews from the cast and crew of "Fanny and Alexander." Featured on the Criterion Collection box set of the film.

7.6/10

Tabloid journalist Annika Bengtzon is writing about a murder in the port of Stockholm and she suspects that the Yugoslav mafia is involved. However, she also finds links to a foundation that runs a shelter for battered women, Paradiset. Looking for a good story she also meets a welfare official, Thomas, who also thinks that the foundation should be looked into. Written by Mattias Thuresson

4.7/10

The Victoriastadium is totally destroyed in a bomb attack and Christina Furhage, head-responsible for the Olympic Games in Stockholm, dies with it. Why did someone destroy the stadium and why is Christina murdered? The police desperately seek for clues that will lead them to the perpetrator but without any luck. As the Olympic Games draws near the situation becomes more desperate. Annika Bengtzon, a reporter for Kvällsposten, se a connection that no one else sees and without understanding it she starts a carousel that in the end will threaten her own life.

4.8/10

Ten actresses test films for the title role of a remake of "Queen Christina".

4.7/10
2.9%

Based on the novel by Maria Gripe, this is the story of two children, Klas and Klara, growing up in the poor Swedish countryside of the mid-19th century. Their father Albert is a glass-blower, famous for his beautiful vases, but still unable to earn enough money for his wife Sofia and the children. At a spring fair a distinguished gentleman arrives and buys all of Albert's glassware. After this nothing will be the same again. Klas and Klara are kidnapped and taken to a strange castle...

6.2/10

A woman returns to her native Estonia to unravel the complex mysteries of her family's past. Set in 1989, against the background of the Baltic territory's struggle for peace and independence from the Soviet Union.

6.8/10

The film is based on a series of immensely popular Swedish children's books, about the boy Bert, who is just hitting puberty and having the usual problems with it. But that's where the usual ends abruptly.

5.8/10

In this thoughtful Scandinavian drama, a teenage boy wrestles with his sexuality and learns that most of his deepest fears were unfounded. Sebastian is almost 17 when he figures out that he is a homosexual. Though he lives with wonderful, stable parents and has a good-hearted sister, he finds himself wracked with turmoil and suddenly withdraws from them all. The more they try to understand why, the more distant Sebastian becomes. Things get worse when he falls in love with the handsome Ulf, who comes from an unstable, tempestuous home. Sebastian realizes he is lucky, but still can't help but become irritated when he brings Ulf home for dinner. His parents are too nice and this quietly infuriates their son. Eventually they leave the two boys alone in the house. Sebastian have great fun doing teenage guy stuff, but then they take a bath together and it is then that Sebastian tries to kiss Ulf.

5.4/10

At a Swedish company with international contacts, a bestial murder is committed. The murdered person has been employed by the company - everything indicates that the chairman of the board is guilty.

5.1/10

Blackpool, a dancing contest, a dead woman. This is the opening scene of this movie, which then continues by telling us the story preceding this sad accident - or is it a murder? We will get to know the tensed relationship of the dancing contestant couple Tove and Claes, and see how there lives are affected by Liselott and Lennart, their opponents and friends.

6.6/10

On March 16, 1792, the king of Sweden Gustav III was shot at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. The play portrays the king's last hours before the attack.

7.3/10

In desperation brought on by near-starvation, Helge Roos kills his master's ox and feeds it to his wife and baby daughter. No-one suspects anything until the meat is finished and Helge tries to sell the hide at a local market. He is spotted by the local vicar and, wracked with guilt, confesses. The vicar assures him that if he gives himself up, he'll be treated leniently, but Helge's sentence is far harsher than anyone predicted...

7.1/10

A mother and daughter prepare themselves for the return of the son.

Larry Pedersen, professor of psychology of religion, has just divorced when a student named Elisabeth student must take the exam before him. Later in the evening the same day, she is beaten by her boyfriend and then Pedersen offers her a bed for the night.

4.9/10

Partially autobiographical film about little Sara who grows up in a home with a neurotic mother.

5.8/10

The landlubber Stig-Helmer and his Norwegian friend Ole get on a barge by mistake. They arrive at an archipelago and have to spend Midsummer among the fancy rich boat people, their yachts and summer houses.

6.2/10

A charged power struggle between spouses. A tug of war to the death of an only child as ends and means. From an August Strindberg play.

5.7/10

Jim Olsson, eight years old, lives in a small, boring town.His father has passed away recently but comes back in Jim's fantasies to tell stories. In his daydreams Jim has all kinds of adventures.

6.1/10

On a shooting range outside of Stockholm in the raw September night something is not right. In the darkness of the marker the ground shows signs of blood.

6.4/10

"Life and Death" - A female reporter intended to go on a reporting trip about childbirth to Japan, declines the offer. Instead, she visits a maternity hospital in Sweden. She meets a doctor, who she has been in love for 15 years.

5.2/10

Catherine and Frank are arguing and their neighbors Thomas and Jenna are drawn into the fight.

5.4/10

Peter-No-Tail (Pelle Svanslös) is a cat who was born without a tail. He compensates this by studying hard and, much to the dismay of his arch-rival Magnus (Måns), he receives a fancy university degree very few cats in the university town Uppsala, Sweden have obtained. Peter is visited by his American relative Pelle Swanson who invites him to visit his new home country America - in the movie called Americat. There everything is bigger and everything seems possible.

5.8/10

Two municipal workers will drill a hole in the street.

Through the eyes of ten-year-old Alexander, we witness the delights and conflicts of the Ekdahl family, a sprawling bourgeois clan in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Sweden.

9.1/10

Three friends who haven't seen each other for seventeen years reunite and have a lot to tell about what has happened in the meantime. The film follows the friends for some time afterwards and then moves another twenty years in the future...

5.2/10

Three friends, Robban, Alexander and Kim has just left the compulsory school, and now they consider themselves grown-up and mature, being 16 years old. During the summer holiday they also get a bit of experience of the world: Robban becomes a full-time drug addict, Alexander plays in a rock band but leaves it and Kim is desperate to get the girl of his dreams.

5.3/10

As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.

8.1/10
10%

Peter-No-Tail is a cat who's born without a proper tail on a farm by the Swedish countryside. Due to economical difficulties, the farmer is forced to get rid of Peter. The farmer can't bring himself to drown the cat, so he sneaks Peter inside the car of a family who are renting a house close to the farm for their summer vacation. When the family finally reach their home in Uppsala, Sweden, they find Peter and decide to keep him. Without a tail, he becomes the talk of the town among the other cats and, especially Mike, who teases him cruelly. Mean Mike and his two companions, Bill and Bull, are notorious for the nasty tricks they like to play on other cats. Mike is currently trying to court Molly Silk-Nose, but his rough and silly approach does not impress her, since she becomes interested in the kind and gentle Peter. But Mike won't give up that easily and he has a plan for how he'll get his revenge.

7/10

Sally, a 28-year-old social worker who has just broken up from a ten-year marriage. She seeks freedom, but has trouble living alone. She soon finds a new man, lawyer Jonas, but Sally knows that the past is chasing her and do things more difficult for her freedom quest.

6.1/10

A stripper from Club Chez Nous is murdered. The killer contacts a newspaper to whitewash himself. Two journalists start to investigate the case and stumble on other crimes along the way.

5.5/10

A family in their summer house in the Stockholm archipelago. The two daughters fantasize they are adults, representing different colors - red, yellow, blue, green, violet, black and indigo.

6/10

A drama about love, divorce, identity and feminism, made for Sveriges Television.

6.2/10

The film depicts the events surrounding the last public executions in Sweden.

5.5/10