Maybe it’s a propensity for complexity and inner turmoil, exemplified by Denmark’s status both as one of the top-ranked consumers of anti-depressants and the widely recognized Happiest Country on Earth. Maybe it’s the state funding for public television that empowers storytellers to go dark without worrying about happy endings and big ratings. Maybe it’s the cinematic legacy rooted in Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman’s melancholy vision of human relationships, or the skeptical political perspective of a proudly progressive region stuck between American and Russian superpowers, or the long winters that bring with them an appetite for spell-binding yarns.

Whatever the reasons, Northern Europe has become a hot spot for bone-chilling thrillers.

Swedish blockbuster The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Danish TV series The Killing paved the way for stories filled with complicated characters and bad behavior set against backdrops of scenic fjords and picturesque cities.

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, who helped ignite Northern Europe’s fictional crime wave with his moody vampire film Let the Right One In, observes that he and his countrymen often use understatement to build suspense. “In Scandinavia,” he says, “Silence is a part of our culture and our way of communicating. Silence is very useful and cinematic because it activates the viewer’s imagination.”

By turns subtle and grisly, Nordic Noir proves especially nourishing during the wintry post-holiday doldrums. Here’s a binge-viewing guide to four TV series and one movie from Northern Europe that deserve a place in your home entertainment queue.

Kurt Wallander portrayed by Krister Henriksson Photo: courtesy of Music Box Films

He’s the Swedish Sherlock Holmes, who’s been portrayed by two Swedish actors and one Brit, Kenneth Branagh, in dozens of 90-minute installments. Novelist Henning Mankell clearly struck a Nordic nerve in 1991 when he created the gruff, middle-aged Kurt Wallander. Burdened with an estranged family and a crew of slacker cops stationed in the seaport of Ystad, Wallander always cracks the case, but not before sifting through a cross section of Swedish society encompassing illegal immigrants, choir girls, and racists.

In the TV series Wallander , adapted from Henning Mankell’s novel and aired in Sweden for three intermittent seasons between 2005 and 2013, Krister Henriksson plays the detective. Doughy-faced and russet-haired, he drinks fine wine, listens to classical music, takes long walks along the wintry beach with his dog Jussi and harbors a silent crush on divorced prosecutor Katarina Ahlsell (Lena Endre) when she moves in next door with her two teenaged kids. Available on Netflix.