Film
Riders of Justice
Retfærdighedens ryttere
When his wife is killed in a train crash, deployed soldier Markus returns home to care for his teenage daughter. A chance encounter with a nervous statistician convinces him the accident was no accident — that it was a hit orchestrated by a biker gang to silence a witness. Markus teams up with a trio of awkward statisticians and IT geeks to track down those responsible, in Anders Thomas Jensen's signature blend of black comedy, deadpan absurdity and unexpected tenderness about grief, chance, and the stories we tell to make sense of loss.
About
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.
Top Cast
Mads Mikkelsen
Markus
Nikolaj Lie Kaas
Otto
Lars Brygmann
Lennart
Nicolas Bro
Emmenthaler
Andrea Heick Gadeberg
Mathilde
Awards, Festivals & Mentions
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Winner — Robert Award Best Actor (Mads Mikkelsen)
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Denmark's official submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film