Riders of Justice

Anders Thomas Jensen's Riders of Justice is the fourth feature he has directed with Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Lie Kaas — following Flickering Lights, The Green Butchers and Adam's Apples — and is regularly described as the most polished film of that long collaboration. It was selected as Denmark's official submission for the 94th Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category, although it did not advance to the shortlist.

The cast is Jensen's regular Danish ensemble: Mikkelsen, Lie Kaas, Lars Brygmann and Nicolas Bro, with Andrea Heick Gadeberg in a breakthrough role as the daughter. The film won multiple Robert Awards from the Danish Film Academy, including Best Actor for Mikkelsen, and was nominated across most categories at the Bodil Awards the same year. Cinematography is by Kasper Tuxen, who had shot The Green Butchers for Jensen and Mike Mills' Beginners.

The film's tonal mix — black comedy, thriller plot, sincere grief drama — has become Jensen's signature register, and Riders of Justice is now widely treated as his most successful balance of those tendencies. It was also one of Mikkelsen's strongest commercial performers in his home market in the year between Another Round and his Hollywood return in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny; the production was shot during a small post-pandemic window in late 2020.