Culture, and television in particularly in Europe has been quite America-dominated for a while. I’d love to hear what’s good from your home countries. If I can make a request, give a short description of the shows that you are recommending, try to sell it a bit, and don’t just post the titles. Particularly, I’d recommend:
Matador (Danish, 1978)
This is the best TV series in the history of Denmark, possibly the world. Set in a small fictional town, it takes place in the years 1929-1947, and the changes Danish society goes through at the time. While this is interesting, the real strength is the fantastic characterization, with the show starring pretty much all famous Danish actors of the era, doing their best work.
Whiskey on the Rocks (Swedish, 2025)
A Swedish satirical series about the Whiskey on the Rocks incident of 1981, where a Soviet Whiskey-class nuclear submarine ran aground in Karlskrona. It got a lot of criticism for depicting the Soviet Union as lovable drunken buffoons instead of brutal imperialists, but I found it pretty funny regardless.
Braunschlag (Austria, 2011)
Another comedy. The mayor of the upper Austrian village of Braunschlag ran the town bankruptcy. In order to get some money flowing back into the town, he decides to fake a Marian apparition. The series is generally very Austrian, but fantastic if you like that sort of thing.
The Bureau
🇨🇵 Amazing French spies series from 2015: Le Bureau des légendes is a French political thriller television series, which revolves around the lives of agents of the DGSE (General Directorate of External Security), France’s principal external security service. “Malotru”, a French intelligence officer, undercover in Syria for 6 years, is called back home. He will face the difficulty to forget his undercover identity, the disappearance of a colleague in Algeria, and the training of a young woman.
Conflict
🇫🇮 Breathtaking Finnish series from 2024: A small, Finnish seaside town is preparing to celebrate midsummer’s eve. An unknown enemy arrives and takes the entire area hostage.
Bad Banks
🇩🇪🇨🇵 German-French series from 2018: Ambitious Jana is confronted with the unscrupulous machinations of the world of finance. Her working life is determined by egotism, the pressure to succeed and machismo. She soon has to decide how far she is prepared to go for her career.
Finnish tv shows are probably not widely available, but I’ll list some nonetheless. Most what I’m going to recommend are comedies and Finnish humour might be weird for someone who has not grown in Finland (even dark and absurd at times, second-hand embarrassment is also very common) but I feel like comedy series are the most authenic we have, dramas often try to imitate international series and by doing that they don’t feel as authentic. I’ve also only chosen to list shows that I feel like would have some appeal even for a non-Finn and shows that are unique, not everyday shows that have a very basic premise.
Queen of Fucking Everything (2024) Real estate agent’s husband disappears with all their money and leaves her with a 3 million euro worth of debt. She gets mixed into illegal drug business and shady renovating practices to get the money to pay her debt. Absurd characters and twists and turns.
Toinen tuleminen / Money Shot (2024) Sari is a 40-year old porn star that gets fired because she’s too old. She starts her own porn film company, hires a film school reject Linnea as writer and together they start to make feminist porn. Absurd characters, twists and turns.
Poromafia / Reindeer Mafia (2023) One family has ruled a little town in Lappland. The matriarch of the family dies and her testament causes the remaining family to start fighting. There’s a snowmobile gang, a Norwegian druglord, paid off authorities etc. Mostly drama but at times dark or absurd humour sprinkled in.
M/S Romantic (2019) Miniseries about a cruise ship journey and what happens during that. Characters include both tourists and staff, there are a lot of hilarious situations. This is what White Lotus would be like if it was written about Finnish people who are not rich by any means.
1670 (Polish)
A satirical comedy following a Polish lower nobleman, his family, and a few of the serfs. The nobleman (Jan) wants to secure his legacy and increase his status/power, but doesn’t do a great job. The characters are very well made, and the story is very ridiculous.
Norsemen (Norwegian, but in English)
Also a satirical, dark comedy about vikings. This one primarily relies on absurdism for its humour.
Both are on Netflix (which is sadly American, but I’m sure there are alternative ways of watching).
Norsemen is pretty funny, I wasn’t sure after the first episode but I kept watching and it grew on me. I read that there is a Norwegian version as well, but Netflix being Netflix only hosted the English version unfortunately.
I also watched 1670, but speaking 0 Polish I felt some jokes didn’t land as well as they could have if I spoke the language
UK - The office. If you are familiar with the US version, and like a little bit more spices. You will love the UK version. Some scenes would be impossible to be seen in US TV IMO. The UK version has my preference.
UK - Utopia. This one is a cult series for the people that appreciated it. It was pre-covid and IMO this is a masterpiece. I highly suggest to watch the correct version with the correct image ratio and not watch the cropped version on most stream providers. Unfortunately the last season was cancelled. But this should be a must watch IMO.
France - Guyane. Marvelous picture, and discovered an aspect of this world I didn’t have any clue about. Also I loved how different it felt from US series in general.
With utopia, also make sure that it’s the UK version, not the US remake
