Kristoffer Nyholm makes patient, actor-led crime dramas and thrillers. We value his attention to troubled people, though The Vanishing exposes the risk: he can keep us waiting without giving us enough to watch.
Fi1m perspective
The younger detective’s awkwardness and his mentor’s care are what make Endeavour (2013) worth settling into. Shaun Evans and Roger Allam give us a reason to stay when the investigations grow familiar. We warmed to the programme because the older man’s concern makes the younger one’s difficulties feel worth taking seriously. Kristoffer Nyholm directed the second-series opener in 2014, so the achievement is hardly his alone. It is a useful place to see the value of his interest in character: the people keep us watching when the case cannot.
His work on the Danish crime drama The Killing (2007–2009) covered 12 episodes across its first two series. The move into British television took him from detective work to the three-part supernatural drama The Enfield Haunting (2015), then to the opening four episodes of Taboo (2017). Working with Tom Hardy and Steven Knight on the latter gave him another setting for intense, morally complicated characters. Nyholm’s close work with Hardy on the performance is important here, given how much his direction depends on our interest in difficult people. Across these changes of genre, he keeps returning to people under pressure.
The Vanishing (2018), his first feature, brings that approach to a confined psychological thriller with Gerard Butler and Peter Mullan. The isolation is convincing and the dread builds, but some passages offer too little to justify their slowness. A willingness to sit with uncomfortable people becomes a problem when the scenes themselves grow thin. This is where we would prefer less solemnity and a firmer hand with the pace.
Endeavour provides a welcome change from the gloom, and it remains our clearest recommendation here. Its familiar investigations are a limitation, but Evans and Allam make the relationship worth the time spent following them. For Nyholm, it is a reminder that taking characters seriously need not mean keeping everything bleak. We would welcome more of that warmth alongside the tension. Start there for company, then try The Killing for a longer stretch of his work.
Biography
Kristoffer Nyholm is a Danish director and producer. He was born on 13 May 1951 in Silkeborg, Denmark.
Nyholm began his career working as an assistant director and in the camera department on Danish films, including several by Lars von Trier. He directed episodes of Danish series including Forbrydelsen (known in English as The Killing, 2007–2009) and Nikolaj og Julie (2002–2003).
His international credits include directing four episodes of the BBC/FX series Taboo (2017), an episode of Endeavour (2014), the mini-series The Enfield Haunting (2015) and the feature The Vanishing (2018). He has also directed episodes of Wolf (2023).
