The 40 most popular swedish documentary movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


The Referee
2010 · 29m · SE
Swedish soccer referee Martin Hansson had a successful journey towards his big dream in life, the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Then one dark night in Paris on November 18th, 2009, all hell broke loose.


Cornelis - Dokumentären
1997 · 1h 30m · SE
A portrait of Swedish troubadour Cornelis Vreeswijk.


Secrets of the Nazi Criminals
1963 · 1h 22m · SE
Documents the major trial of the Nazi war criminals and the violent acts that they were accused of.


Ingmar Bergman
1972 · 55m · SE
Portrait of Ingmar Bergman, made while he was working on The Touch, about his professional and private life in the early 1970s.


I Am Greta
2020 · 1h 37m · DE
Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old student in Sweden, started a school strike for the climate as her question for adults was, if you don’t care about my future on earth, why should I care about my future in school? Within months, her strike evolved into a global movement as the quiet teenage girl on the autism spectrum becomes a world-famous activist.


Puppetboy
2008 · 27m · SE
For more than a decade, an eccentric animator has worked on films featuring a little clay figure he calls "Puppetboy". Many hours of animation have been completed, yet very little has been made available to the public. Following the artist behind the scenes we discover a very intimate relationship between him an his protagonist.


The Most Beautiful Boy in the World
2021 · 1h 33m · SE
In 1971, due to the world premiere of Death in Venice, Italian director Lucino Visconti proclaimed his Tadzio as the world’s most beautiful boy. A shadow that today, 50 years later, weighs Björn Andrésen’s life.


The Atlantic
1995 · 1h 16m · IS
A documentary about the islands in the Atlantic, about the islanders and their stories.


The Nun
2007 · 57m · DK
After Marta had decided to become a nun at a young age, filmmaker Maud Nycander followed her and her family for ten years.


Necrobusiness
2008 · 1h 35m · PL
The Polish government issued a burial fund to the relatives of any deceased citizen. Now the undertakers of Lodz in Poland have figured out a way to lay their greedy hands on those funds. By paying ambulance drivers to get the information where the unfortunate relatives live, they went there with contracts to get the relatives to sign over the burial funds to the undertakers. The idea was that while the relatives was still struck with grief and sorrow, they wouldn't want to read through a thick contract and just sign it instead. Things really went ugly when the ambulance drivers figured out that they would make more money if more people died.


Djävulens krig
2026 · 59m · SE
On snow-covered fields in the small village of Napue in Ostrobothnia, a terribly one-sided battle is being fought in the bitter February cold. The Swedish army numbers 4,500 men. The Russian force consists of over 10,000 soldiers. The odds are impossible to overcome, and the Swedish defeat is total. The year is 1714, and the entire eastern half of the kingdom is now under Russian control. The era of the Great Northern War has begun.


Johanna! Yohanna!
2003 · 29m · SE
When Yohanna started the first grade in school, her classmates began bullying her. She kept getting bullied for six years. This is her story.


Häxan
1922 · 1h 45m · SE
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.


Breaking Social
2023 · 1h 33m · FI
The social contract: the rules we follow - and some don’t. Breaking Social uncovers the pattern of corruption and kleptocracy erasing the social tissue, followed by social uprisings. In Chile a new turn is taken, with young women in the lead.


Ferrum
1963 · 14m · SE
Unconventional portrayal of mining in the Swedish Lapland ore fields, a powerful image and sound symphony that can be experienced both as a documentary and symbolic work.


The Voice of Ljudmila
2001 · 1h 12m · SE
Ljudmila Ignatenko tells the story of her and her husband Vasilij, a firefighter who was one of the victims of the Chornobyl disaster in 1986.


Avicii - I'm Tim
2024 · 1h 37m · SE
Before Avicii, there was Tim. Through his own words, witness how a prodigious musical talent became one of the defining artists of his generation.


The Architecture of Doom
1989 · 1h 59m · SE
Featuring never-before-seen film footage of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, The Architecture of Doom captures the inner workings of the Third Reich and illuminates the Nazi aesthetic in art, architecture and popular culture. From Nazi party rallies to the final days inside Hitler's bunker, this sensational film shows how Adolf Hitler rose from being a failed artist to creating a world of ponderous kitsch and horrifying terror. Hitler worshipped ancient Rome and Greece, and dreamed of a new Golden Age of classical art and monumental architecture, populated by beautiful, patriotic Aryans. Degenerated artists and inferior races had no place in his lurid fantasy. As this riveting film shows, the Nazis went from banning the art of modernists like Picasso to forced euthanasia of the retarded and sick, and finally to the persecution of homosexuals and the extermination of the Jews.


Black Angels
2022 · SE
No overview available


Dirigenterna
1987 · 1h 20m · SE
Six women have entered a male world - the orchestra conductors. The doubtfulness against female conductors and musicians in the world of classical music becomes clear during a visit to the Vienna Philharmonic. Conductors Sixten Ehrling and Jorge Mester comment on the prevailing conservative attitudes among colleagues.


Push
2019 · 1h 32m · SE
Housing prices are skyrocketing in cities around the world. Incomes are not. PUSH sheds light on a new kind of faceless landlord, our increasingly unliveable cities and an escalating crisis that has an effect on us all. This is not gentrification, it’s a different kind of monster.The film follows Leilani Farha, the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, as she’s travelling the globe, trying to understand who’s being pushed out of the city and why. “I believe there’s a huge difference between housing as a commodity and gold as a commodity. Gold is not a human right, housing is,” says Leilani.


Logistics
2012 · 16h 39m · SE
Logistics or Logistics Art Project is an experimental art film. At 51,420 minutes (857 hours or 35 days and 17 hours), it is the longest movie ever made. A 37 day-long road movie in the true sense of the meaning. The work is about Time and Consumption. It brings to the fore what is often forgotten in our digital, ostensibly fast-paced world: the slow, physical freight transportation that underpins our economic reality.


Besvärliga människor
2001 · 1h 35m
"Dificult People" - About the production process when Suzanne Osten directs the theater play ”Difficult people”, written by Nils Gredeby. It is a play about people who fail in their professional careers by ”being difficult”. It all starts with the author attending a course about how to spot the difficult people and how to fire people who sabotage or create problems at the working place. In the process the ensemble has to face questions about how we view our fellow human beings and who is considered expendable.


Somliga går med trasiga skor
2023 · 1h 45m · SE
Cornelis Vreeswijk was one of the biggest artists in Sweden. 33 years after his death, his songs are still played daily on the radio and on various streaming services. Cornelis Vreeswijk has a special position in Swedish music history and has reached out to new generations of listeners and artists.


Palmemördaren
2021 · 59m · SE
On June 10, 2020, the 34-year-old Palme Inquiry was closed down because the investigators could not "get around" Skandiaman, Stig Engström. Here, the prosecutor's accusations and allegations about Stig Engström are examined.


Inside the Trustor Scandal
2026 · 1h 42m · SE
For the first time since 1997, Joachim Posener finally emerges from hiding and allows himself to be interviewed about his life and the Trustor affair. Twenty-seven years ago, he disappeared without a trace, and ever since, he has been on the international most wanted list. Now, Karin af Klintberg searches for him to find out how he lives and where he's been hiding all these years. But perhaps above all, to uncover what everyone is wondering: Was he guilty? Through new and opposing testimonies from never-before-heard voices, Karin simultaneously continues the search for the truth about the coup. How could five people swindle 600 million kr and still go free? And where did the money actually go?


Guldvaskaren från Lannavaara
2025 · 1h 35m · SE
A film about the gold panning adventures of Hans Söderström, an indigenous Swede. The story stretches from Scandinavia to Africa, via Asia and the Americas, but ultimately boils down to the simple boyish dream of finding gold. Lots of it. And oneself.


The Comet
2004 · 29m · SE
Stockholm 1965. A comet is heading towards earth. A man with a super-8 camera documents the city and its inhabitants the days before the end of the world.


Armadillo
2010 · 1h 45m · DK
Danish soldiers are sent to Afghanistan in 2009 for 6 months, to help stabilize the country against the Taliban. They're stationed on Armadillo military base in Helman province. Unlike other war movies, this is the real deal – no actors.


Soap Fever
2026 · 1h 18m · FI
With the Soviet Union’s dissolution dragging down the economy of neighboring Finland, the Scandinavian country was plunged in a period of protracted recession. And with no recovery in sight, a soap opera offered Finns a respite from the grim reality; the debut of The Bold and the Beautiful on television quickly amassed a vast and dedicated following, whereas the arrival of American idols in the country, on tour, elicited unprecedented frenzy.


The Unmeasureable
2024 · 1h 30m · SE
Director Nils Petter Löfstedt turns the camera towards a profession he has been part of himself, trying to depict the crucial work in care that rarely appears in work plans and is never the basis for various calculations or schedules. It's about consideration and respect, the interpersonal and circular work that constantly happens in the moment at preschools, nursing homes, and home care services, but which is not attributed its actual significance. The Unmeasurable not only points out flaws in society's view of care but is also an initiated and deeply touching portrayal of various workplaces and a working class dominated by women.


Medaljens Pris
2012 · SE
No overview available


2 Big to Rig
2026 · 1h 55m · US
Captured live over the course of GHOST’s two sold-out shows in Mexico City last year, 2 BIG TO RIG is the definitive document of the band's unforgettable SKELETOUR WORLD TOUR, presented in IMAX® in select locations. Featuring the only pro-shot footage of Papa V Perpetua and his band of Nameless Ghouls from the phone-free SKELETOUR, 2 BIG TO RIG immerses the audience in the GHOST live ritual, including exclusive behind-the-scenes and backstage access.


Aktörens läte
1998 · 57m · SE
Deeply personal portrait of the actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård where he discusses acting.


Anonymous
1991 · 57m · SE
A container with stuff from a cleaned out apartment in Stockholm drives the cineaste to look for their owners. In the course of this quest, he meets the actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård and the author Stig Larsson. The desire to give meaning where perhaps there is none.


Till minne av Gösta Ekman
2017 · 1h · SE
The actor and director Gösta Ekman was one of Sweden's most popular artists. He was born 77 years ago straight into the Swedish acting elite. In this memory film, we start from the very last filmed interview that was done with Gösta.


Fire, Water, Earth, Air
2026 · 1h 25m · DK
Four stories from the Nordic region paint a picture of a changing natural world, where the elements rage and where being prepared proves to be much more than sandbags and fire extinguishers.


Silvana
2017 · 1h 30m · SE
A documentary about the Swedish rapper and artist Silvana Imam.


Facing Genocide: Khieu Samphan and Pol Pot
2010 · 1h 34m · KH
Khieu Samphan was, as head of state, the public face of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot. Facing Genocide is a close portrait of the man who made Pol Pot's terror regime possible.


Norrmalmstorgsdramat inifrån
2003 · 58m · SE
"The Norrmalmstorgs drama from the inside" - For more than 30 years, the bank-robber Janne Olsson refused to talk about the noted bank-robbery at Norrmalmstorg, Stockholm, in 1973. This is the first interview with Olsson.
Swedish cinema is inseparable from Ingmar Bergman, whose chamber dramas set an international benchmark for psychological seriousness. The country also anchors the Nordic noir tradition that reshaped European crime storytelling.
Documentary covers everything from observational vérité to essay film and true crime. The form's best work argues rather than merely records, and the last two decades of streaming demand have made it a commercial genre as much as an artistic one.