If you love noir, you'll love the range of SBS On Demand's Noirvember Collection Hub, where Nordic Noir is just the beginning and everything from Film Noir to Celtic Noir is waiting.
Wisting
When killings and kidnappings need the best investigator Norway can offer, look no further than William Wisting (Sven Nordin), homicide detective in Larvin, a small and seemingly peaceful town that, in the best noir tradition, also appears to be an epicentre for gruesome and mysterious crimes, ranging from the re-emergence of an American serial murderer to the human trafficking of minors. Wisting is relentless in chasing down criminals, and it’s a trait that runs in the family – his daughter Line (Thea Green Lundberg) is an investigative journalist whose pursuit of stories often sees her butting heads with her dad.
Three seasons of Wisting are streaming on SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Wisting
series • Crime drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
series • Crime drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
Reyka
Beyond Nordic Noir lies a world of 'Noir, not Nordic', such as this award-winning South African drama. Protagonists of noir stories tend to have tortured histories, and the backstory of Reyka’s title character – a criminal profiler in the South African province of Kwa-Zulu Natal – is about as traumatic as it gets: Abducted at the age of 12 by abusive farmer Angus (Game of Thrones’ Iain Glen) and kept captive for four years before escaping. The adult Reyka (Kim Engelbrecht) immerses herself in her job tracking down South Africa’s worst criminals to gain justice for the victims and hopefully find healing for herself. But her pursuit of a serial killer (based on an actual murderer who took the lives of 13 women) will push Reyka to her limits.
Two seasons of Reyka are streaming on SBS On Demand, and Iain Glen fans should note that Glen’s despicable Angus plays a pivotal role in the second season.
Stream free On Demand
Reyka
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
A Bloody Lucky Day
Storytellers from all over the globe have embraced the tropes and traditions of noir, often putting their own cultural spin on the genre’s conventions. But if you like your noir jet black, with everything from murky moral complexity to hard-hitting ultraviolence, South Korea should be your destination of choice. And the 10-episode series A Bloody Lucky Day is a taut, terrific example of what the nation has to offer. Oh Taek (Lee Sung-min) is a cheerful but luckless Seoul cabbie trying to rebuild his life after his unwitting involvement in a scam saw him spend time in jail. Picking up young doctor Geum (Yoo Yeon-seok), who’s willing to pay big bucks for a long trip, seems like the first step in the right direction… until Geum reveals he has a sideline in serial murder. And the journey only gets wilder, weirder and nastier from there.
A Bloody Lucky Day is streaming on SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
A Bloody Lucky Day
series • thriller • Korean
MA15+
series • thriller • Korean
MA15+
Guilt
Sometimes it’s a mysterious stranger instigating trouble and strife in a noir story. Sometimes, however, the call is coming from inside the house, as they say, meaning that it’s your nearest and dearest who ends up responsible for your woes. That’s the situation in the Scottish series Guilt, which sees brothers Max (Mark Bonnar) and Jake (Jamie Sives) acting as reluctant allies when they’re not at one another’s throats. When the two are responsible for an old man’s death after a hit-and-run – gentle Jake wants to confess, callous Max definitely does not – their attempts to cover up the crime see them tangling with everyone from nosy neighbours to vicious husband-and-wife gangsters. But Max and Jake’s most dangerous adversaries may well be one another.
All three seasons of Guilt are streaming on SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Guilt
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
Cold
It may be set in Iceland, but the title of this film doesn’t refer to the weather (it actually takes place during a long Icelandic summer); instead, it refers to the coldness felt by troubled teenage girl Rún (Ólöf Halla Jóhannesdóttir), struggling after her mother’s death by suicide and trying to relate to her father, Ódinn (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), who is tamping down his own pain by obsessively focusing on his work as a cold-case detective. That proves easier said than done, though, because Ódinn is finding strange connections between his ex-wife’s death and his investigation into the deaths of two boys at a juvenile detention centre in the 1980s. Are these connections real or just a figment of his imagination? To complicate matters further, Rún’s own search for answers about her mother hints at deep, dark secrets in the family’s past.
Based on the bestselling novel Kuldi (also known as The Undesired), Cold is streaming on SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Cold
drama • thriller • 2023
drama • thriller • 2023
Reckless
From the makers of Mystery Road and Total Control comes a free-wheeling First Nations crime caper that takes sibling rivalry to a whole new level. Reckless sees feuding sister and brother June (Tasma Walton) and Charlie (Hunter Page-Lochard) forced to put their differences aside when they’re implicated in a deadly crime. But while June is trying to keep it all together, Charlie can’t help but tear it all apart and before too long, everyone is facing the consequences of their actions.
The four-part series Reckless, a co-production between SBS and NITV, premieres 8.30pm Wednesday November 12 on SBS, NITV and SBS On Demand.
Upcoming On Demand
Reckless
series • Comedy drama
M
series • Comedy drama
M
True Colours
Small towns – they seem so nice and friendly, everyone knows everyone else’s name and all that. But take another look: they’re often hotbeds of dark secrets, hidden agendas and all manner of malfeasance. That’s certainly the case in the Central Australian town of Perdar Theendar, where a young woman has been found dead after a suspicious car accident and the largely Indigenous local community is keeping silent about the circumstances surrounding the case. Big-city police detective Toni Alma (Rarriwuy Hick) has been sent to investigate – reluctantly on her part – and discovers the girl’s death is the entry point into a conspiracy of cultural exploitation.
Four-episode series True Colours is streaming on SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
True Colours
series • drama
M
series • drama
M
Hard Eight
Ten movies into his storied career, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is enjoying some of his best reviews to date with the electrifying One Battle After Another. But if you go back to the beginning of his career, specifically his debut feature Hard Eight, you’ll see that PTA had the goods from the get-go. Both a quietly gripping thriller and a moving character study, Hard Eight follows the relationship between urbane pro gambler Sydney (the great Philip Baker Hall) and wayward young drifter John (PTA regular John C. Reilly), a deep friendship that is built on a long-buried and dangerous secret. Excellent supporting performances by Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson (and an unforgettable early cameo by Philip Seymour Hoffman) add terrific texture to this ‘90s neo-noir.
Hard Eight is streaming on SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Hard Eight
Crime drama • 1996
Crime drama • 1996
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