Best shows on Walter Presents

From France, a fine psychological drama. Pauline (Ophelia Kolb) is a frazzled, penniless single mother, taunted by an abusive ex who refuses to financially support his children. So she goes to confront him and he ends up dead... what we, the authorities and her young son don't know is whether her claim, that he was deceased when she arrived and she merely found the body, is true. Is her odd behaviour due to guilt, fear of being unfairly blamed, or something else? As a number of female authority figures wrestle with that, an atmosphere of quiet desperation and darkness behind closed doors is expertly realised.

Jack Seale

Evidently the French aren’t too fussed about Paris becoming a romcom cliché, because here they are with their own wilfully silly but witty series about Julie (Maude Baecker), disastrously still single at 36 and looking for love in the city. The chance discovery of a love letter, written on a phone left behind in the back of a taxi, puts Julie on her quest: become the woman described in the note, and bag her perfect man. Naturally she has two acerbic, truth-telling best friends in tow, and she’s not averse to breaking into song either. Très drôle!

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An extraordinary real-life forgery serves as the inspiration for the this European drama joining the Walter Presents library on All 4.

Faking Hitler chronicles how a con man duped Stern, a prominent German magazine, into purchasing and publishing what were believed to be the personal diaries of the Nazi dictator. However, in an embarrassing public scandal, these were exposed as fakes produced by counterfeiter Konrad Kujau.

David Craig

Danish drama fans will be cheering familiar faces throughout the first episode of this new series, which delves into the country’s drug trade. A startling pre-credits flashback shows us two young brothers witnessing a traumatic event involving their father – years later when he dies, his sons (Andreas and Sebastian Jessen) are drawn back to their home town and towards the underworld their father operated in. As they come at this new life from very different directions, a crime thriller with thoughtful character notes and artful direction develops.

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This is a promising German crime drama about a former policewoman (Marie Leuenberger) who is living with her troublesome teenage daughter under new identities in Paussau in Lower Bavaria after testifying against a gang boss. It gets off to an odd start with a pair of Roman soldiers burying a comrade in the woods, and we return to that scene eventually but not before Frederike, as the woman is now called, accidentally meets up with dubious detective Ferdinand Zankl (Michael Ostrowski) during a violent shoplifting incident. Despite her best efforts to keep a low profile, he tracks her down, which might not matter too much except her whereabouts become known to the imprisoned gang boss. And that doesn’t bode well for the quiet continuation of her secret new life...

Jane Rackham

The most popular series in Denmark for 20 years, this comedy-drama is deliciously bright, breezy and beguiling. It’s 1931 and we join all the returning guests at the gorgeous beachside hotel that’s now run by good-hearted Fie (Rosalinde Mynster). A cross between a PG Wodehouse story and a French farce, it combines romance, sneaky business deals, bickering and intrigues set against the backdrop of sand dunes and big skies with writ-large characters wearing fabulous vintage costumes and delivering their lines in the most charming and amusing way. Hygge personified.

Jane Rackham

In an industrial building, Italian detective Leonardo Cagliostro (Lino Guanciale) is confronted with a shocking murder scene: the victim is him. To be honest he’s such an argumentative, grumpy individual, there are probably any number of people wanting to kill him. However, after seeing in a flashback that he dies in a gun fight, we then learn that Leo is staying on earth to protect his wife who he fears is also at risk. Trouble is, as he’s a ghost, nobody can see or hear him – except one teenaged girl.

A dark and moody combination of the supernatural and crime, it’s not exactly Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).

Jane Rackham

The third series of this quality German sleuther begins with a country-house mystery. Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) gets a surprise invitation to visit his estranged best pal. Which is strange because the men’s relationship soured some years ago when Borowski tried and failed to prove that the guy had killed his wife, but the case has now been revived in odd circumstances. Series one and two are also available on All 4 under the Walter Presents banner.

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Threatening dappled sunlight, intimidating trees, unnervingly pristine barns and squads of blonde women wearing identical white T-shirts, doing yoga in an indefinably horrifying manner: yes, it’s season two of Sweden’s stylish drama about a gated farming community that definitely has something to hide. As the cult of Jordnara deals with financial difficulties, an incident attracts the attention of the police. Every artfully shot scene has a carefully composed air of cool weirdness about it.

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The first Ukrainian series on Walter Presents, Hide and Seek was nominated for Best Central and Eastern European Series at the unfortunately named “Serial Killer Awards”. The 2019 series is also a cut above the average procedural, capitalising on brutalist urban landscapes and a solid central pairing to transcend the slightly familiar set-up.

In a fading industrial town, a seven-year-old girl goes missing during a round of the eponymous game with her loving but flawed father. Other children then vanish, with each disappearance followed by the release of a short video of the child holding up four numbers. Enter Varta Naumova (Yuliya Abdel Fattakh) and Maksim Shumov (Vyacheslav Dovzhenko), she remote and private, he laid-back and personable, both bearing secrets. If it’s no surprise to discover they make an effective if unorthodox team, the setting is evocatively deployed and the performances steady.

Gabriel Tate

When his adult son is found dead and his police-office old flame (Maya Sansa) gets in touch to say she doesn’t believe the official verdict of suicide, Valerio (Alessandro Gassman) must begin a process of painful rebuilding. Gorgeous cinematography that offsets profound sadnesses in the story and flashes of lyricism in the script elevate this Italian series well above the usual.

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This German crime thriller is inspired by real-life events, as high-ranking Hamburg police officer Thomas Bethge attempts to track down a serial killer over multiple decades. Not only that, but this is personal for Bethge, as his sister disappeared near where the gruesome murders took place.

All three parts of the Deutschland spy series are available on Walter Presents (83, 86 and 89) and they perfectly blend a coming-of-age story with a Cold War thriller. The series tells the story of Martin Rauch, who is sent from East Germany by his aunt in the Secret Service to act as a spy in West Germany. RadioTimes.com called Deutschland 83 “an original take on a classic story”.

Locked Up is a Spanish crime drama about a young woman who is sent to prison for tax offences. The series focuses on prison life, including the corruption of the officials. Locked Up was originally cancelled after two seasons but was revived by another channel for two more seasons, proving its enduring popularity and fanbase.

In series two of Polish serial-killer drama Angel of Death, Maciej Stuhr returns as cold-eyed murderer Piotr Wolnicki, but while the first run was about the police following strange clues in an effort to save future victims, now the show cleverly twists that same battle of wills by becoming primarily a courtroom saga. Did cops cut some corners that might jeopardise their chances of conviction, particularly when the question of Piotr’s guilt becomes a cause célèbre in the media?

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Magdalena Cielecka is back as Poland's maverick lawyer Joanna Chylka for season three of a crime drama that doesn't do things by halves. The aftermath of a double murder - which is, be warned, shown before the opening credits of episode one and is disturbing - gives Chylka the chance to get revenge on her old firm, so she sobers up for long enough to get involved with the inheritance dispute attached to the victims. Of course that will also mean investigating the case itself, in her own inimitable style. Cielecka once again throws herself into a shamelessly lurid tale.

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A young Finnish detective hunts for a serial killer in his home town, making him confront his own past in this intense crime drama. Set in a deeply religious community, the series tackles homophobia and fanaticism and, conveniently, sin.

In this French version of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians murder mystery five women and five men – all strangers – have been invited to a “luxurious” hotel on a remote, tropical island. It’s hardly the deluxe, five-star experience they were expecting but then as various disconcerting things happen, tensions start to rise especially when they realise that they’re trapped there. As Christie fans know, they’ve been brought there by someone wanting revenge for crimes they’ve committed and one by one they meet a gruesome end. Atmospheric, creepy, entertaining and engrossing even if you’ve read the original story.

Jane Rackham

A seven-part Norwegian detective show about a case in which a young man is found dead and his girlfriend is missing. The two detectives leading the case have different approaches but both have skeletons in their closet and as the case deepens it threatens to spiral out of control.

A saga about trafficked sex workers in Amsterdam and Antwerp, this Dutch drama certainly has a difficult subject matter but doesn’t descend into grim titillation.

Instead, it neatly intertwines the lives of three disparate women: an opera singer with an errant husband and a detective for whom the case of a murdered young woman might distract from her unsatisfactory personal life are about to come into contact with a senior member of a criminal gang who is starting to doubt herself. They are carefully drawn characters in a convincingly nightmarish world.

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Sins of the Fathers (Odwróceni. Ojcowie i córki) is an excellent Polish gangster series set in Warsaw in the present day.

Lidka (Joanna Balasz) is a cop getting into trouble for roughing up violent criminals; Kaska (Eliza Rycembel) is a law graduate who looks set for a glamorous career. They’re linked by their dads: respectively, a retired police officer and a gangster who is meant to be retired, but whose unresolved crimes are about to tie the quartet together in unexpected ways.

The contrast between the flawed, charismatic older men and their sometimes wiser, sometimes naive children gives the hard-boiled crime action an extra dimension.

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