Solsidan

Sweden's most-watched comedy of the last twenty years, created by Felix Herngren with Ulf Kvensler, Pontus Edgren and Jacob Seth Fransson for TV4 and running, on and off, from 2010 to a ninth season in 2025. At its peak it drew audiences that no Swedish scripted show has matched since, and the phrase solsidan — the sunny side, the affluent coastal strip south-east of Stockholm — became national shorthand for the people it satirises.

Herngren plays Alex, a dentist returning to the suburb he grew up in with his partner Anna, played by Mia Skäringer; Johan Rheborg and Josephine Bornebusch play Fredde and Mickan, the neighbours whose spending is a form of anxiety management. Each half-hour is built from social embarrassment rather than plot — who pays, who was invited, who has noticed what — in the tradition of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which Herngren has cited, but with a specifically Swedish engine: the taboo against appearing to think you are better than anyone.

It won Kristallen prizes for Best Comedy in 2010 and 2012, spawned a feature film in 2017 and has kept its 8.1 IMDb average across fifteen years and ninety episodes. For a catalogue with eleven Swedish series and not one comedy among them, it is the obvious correction — and the best available introduction to how Sweden makes fun of itself.