Department Q Movies in Order & How Many Are There?
Department Q is a Danish Nordic noir film series, based on crime novels by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen. In case you are wondering how many movies are there in the franchise, and what is the best way to watch Department Q movies in order, you are in the right place.
In this article, we will let you know exactly how many Department Q movies are there, what is the best way to watch them, do you even need to watch them in order, and whether will there be more Department Q movies in the future. So, let’s begin.
How many Department Q movies are there?
There are currently five Department Q movies. Let’s see what they look like in order by their release date.
- The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013)
- The Absent One (2014)
- A Conspiracy of Faith (2016)
- The Purity of Vengeance (2018)
- The Marco Effect (2021)
Now that we have seen what they look like in order by their release date, we will let you know what is the best way to watch Department Q movies, what are they about, and how they connect to each other.
Department Q movies in order
The best way to watch Department Q movies in order is to watch them by their release date. Now let’s see what are the movies about.
The Keeper of Lost Causes (2013)
Carl Mørck is demoted to Department Q, the cold case unit, after a raid he instigated goes wrong. One case, a suspected suicide, piques his interest. His investigations suggest that the victim, a rising politician named Merete Lynnggard, was actually kidnapped. Mørck ruffles feathers and is told to halt the investigation, but he and his assistant Assad persist.
As the duo investigates the case further, they get into trouble with Swedish police and are suspended, but they still continue to persevere in their investigation. Lynnggard is revealed to be imprisoned in a pressure chamber by a vengeful chef named Larsa.
Carl and Assad locate the pressure chamber and rescue Lynnggard as she is about to die, and they arrest Larsa. Because of their action and the prominence of the case, the police chief reinstates the duo as detectives.
The Absent One (2014)
The story centers around the murder of twins in 1994, one of whom was also raped. At first unwilling to get involved in the case, Mørck changes his mind after their father commits suicide after approaching him one night and leaving behind a box of material on the case he has been collecting for years.
Dept Q’s investigation leads away from the young man originally convicted, towards a group of students from a nearby boarding school who became pillars of the Danish establishment. The existence of department Q is threatened by the success of other departments.
A Conspiracy of Faith (2016)
An 8-year-old message in a bottle, written in blood, leads Detective Carl Morck and his assistant Assad to a series of child abductions from religious communities throughout Denmark. The majority of these abductions have not been reported for some reason, and some of them are suspected to have ended in murder.
The Purity of Vengeance (2018)
Two workers accidentally discover a disturbing scene in an old apartment in Copenhagen: hidden behind a false wall are three mummified corpses placed in a sitting position at a table next to another empty seat.
The case ends very quickly in the hands of detective Carl Mørck and his assistant Assad, who have to find out in the shortest possible time who the mummified corpses are and who the fourth, empty place at the table is intended for. Carl and Assad embark on a search for the owner of the apartment, which leads them to a sinister institution for “problem” girls on the island of Sprogø, where extreme neglect and medical experiments of forced sterilization are part of everyday life.
Although the horrors of the island of Sprogø are considered to belong to Denmark’s past, there are still people today who believe that the experiments never stopped. Carl and Assad begin a race against time to prevent more murders and attacks…
The Marco Effect (2021)
When 14-year-old Marco, a homeless gypsy boy, is arrested at the Danish border control for possession of a missing public servant’s passport, police inspector Carl Mørck and his Department Q team are tasked with finding the connection.
The old case contains several suspicious elements: The public servant was accused of pedophilia shortly before he disappeared, and his case was closed unusually quickly. But the silent, traumatized Marco refuses to talk to them and it’s not long before he’s on the run from those who intend to kill him because of what he knows.
Do you need to watch Department Q movies in order?
You should watch Department Q movies in order as the characters and settings are closely connected, even though the cases are mostly separate for every Department Q movie.
Will there be more Department Q movies?
There are five more Department Q movies announced and will adapt additional novels by Jussi Adler-Olsen. They are called and should be released in this order Boundless (2024), The Scarred Woman (2024), Victim 2117 (2026), The Shadow Murders (TBA), and Untitled final film (TBA).
