Wallander

Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander novels (twelve books published between 1991 and 2013 and selling over forty million copies worldwide in over forty languages) are widely considered the foundational texts of the Nordic noir genre, and the Swedish television adaptations starring Krister Henriksson are now treated as the definitive screen version. The Henriksson series ran across three seasons through Yellow Bird Productions and Filmlance International, totalling thirty-two ninety-minute episodes broadcast between 2005 and 2013.

Mankell himself was directly involved in the development of the series and oversaw the screenplay adaptations across the run; he served as creative consultant until his death in October 2015 at the age of sixty-seven. The Swedish series was made in parallel with two further Wallander adaptations: a separate Swedish-language series with Rolf Lassgård in the lead (made in the late 1990s), and the BBC's English-language adaptation with Kenneth Branagh in the title role across four series (2008-2016). The three independent productions running concurrently is one of the most unusual situations in the recent history of crime-fiction adaptation; Mankell sanctioned all three.

The Henriksson series was shot largely on location in Ystad in southern Skåne, the small port town that is the actual setting of the Mankell novels and that has subsequently developed an entire local tourism economy around the franchise. Henriksson had been a major Swedish stage and screen actor for over thirty years before taking the role; the supporting cast includes Lena Endre, Mats Bergman and Sverrir Gudnason. The Henriksson tenure ended with the 2013 finale, after which the production company retired the property in deference to Mankell's wishes. Mankell's Kurt Wallander book series was published from 1991 onwards, with the final novel The Troubled Man appearing in 2009.