The Chestnut Man
The Chestnut Man (Danish: Kastanjemanden) is a Danish-language crime thriller television series produced by SAM Productions and released internationally on Netflix, based on Søren Sveistrup's debut novel of the same name. Its first season premiered on 29 September 2021, and a second season, The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek, followed on 7 May 2026.1 • 2
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | Kastanjemanden; language Danish; genre drama and thriller1 |
| Premiere | Season 1 on 29 September 2021; Season 2 (Hide and Seek) on 7 May 20261 • 2 |
| Source material | Søren Sveistrup's debut novel, translated into 28 languages and published in 50 countries; Season 2 adapts his second novel, Hide and Seek, published in Denmark in 20241 • 3 |
| Lead detectives | Naia Thulin (Danica Curcic) and Mark Hess (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard)1 |
| Creators | Søren Sveistrup, Dorte W. Høgh, David Sandreuter, and Mikkel Serup1 |
| Format | Six episodes per season, 52 minutes each, TV-MA rating4 |
| Reception | Season 1 holds a 100% Tomatometer score (9 reviews) and 84% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes5 |
Spoilers
Season 1
The first season is set in a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, where police discover a young woman brutally murdered in a playground, one of her hands missing, with a small figure made of chestnuts hanging above her. Detective Naia Thulin is assigned to the case with her new partner, Mark Hess. On the figurine they find evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and was presumed dead: Kristine, the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung (Iben Dorner), Denmark's social minister in the story.1
The season's finale reveals the killer to be someone both detectives know personally: Genz (David Dencik), the forensic specialist who has been working the Chestnut Man case alongside them. Genz's real name is Toke Bering; he and his twin sister Astrid were fostered by Rosa Hartung's family decades earlier, until a lie told by Rosa as a child had the twins placed with another family, where they suffered abuse. Toke killed the foster parents and disappeared. As an adult he took Kristine as revenge; in the finale he sets the farmhouse where the twins grew up on fire, and the three captives escape while Genz dies in a car crash fleeing the scene. Kristine is found alive in Germany with Astrid and returns to her family.3
Season 2: Hide and Seek
The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek premiered on 7 May 2026, five years after the first season. It adapts Hide and Seek, the second novel in Sveistrup's series, published in Denmark in 2024, and was written by Season 1 showrunner Dorte W. Høgh with Emilie Lebech Kaae and directed by Roni Ezra and Milad Alami.3
The story follows a 41-year-old woman reported missing in Copenhagen. Her digital footprints show she was stalked for months by an unidentified perpetrator who sent her images, videos, and a nursery rhyme-style counting song. When she is found murdered, the case is linked to the unsolved murder of a 17-year-old high school student two years earlier. Thulin and Hess lead the investigation again, though their relationship is complicated: in the intervening years Hess ended the relationship and left Denmark six months after the Hartung case.2 • 3 The season's cast adds Sofie Gråbøl as Marie Holst, the mother of the cold-case victim, and Katinka Lærke Petersen as Sandra Lindstrøm.3
Origins and the novel
Søren Sveistrup, a Danish screenwriter, had previously created The Killing (Forbrydelsen), the series that helped establish Danish noir as a global category in the early 2010s.6 The Chestnut Man was his first novel, first published in Denmark in 2018 and translated into 28 languages.7 • 1 In interviews around its English publication, Sveistrup described the book as being about the cracks in the surface of Denmark, a country not just the fairy-tale land of H.C. Andersen.8
Place in Nordic noir
The series sits in the lineage of The Killing and The Bridge, with the genre's slow-burn pacing, weather-dominated mood, and a case that extends across the emotional lives of the ensemble.6 Netflix categorizes it as gritty, dark, Nordic noir, a slow burn, and a serial-killer story.9 Critics received the first season strongly: it holds a 100% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes, with reviewers praising its atmosphere and the pairing of the two leads, while some noted that certain twists were foreseeable.5 Reviews of Hide and Seek were also positive, with critics calling it as creepy as the original season while noting that its formula is familiar within the crime-drama genre.10
References
- The Chestnut Man, SAM Productions
- The Chestnut Man, Netflix Media Center
- The Chestnut Man Is Back with Hide and Seek, Netflix Tudum
- The Chestnut Man, JustWatch
- The Chestnut Man: Season 1, Rotten Tomatoes
- The Chestnut Man, European Screen
- The Chestnut Man Summary, SuperSummary
- A Scary Autumn Children's Tale: PW Talks with Søren Sveistrup, Publishers Weekly
- The Chestnut Man, Netflix Official Site
- The Chestnut Man: Hide and Seek, Rotten Tomatoes
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Drama and prestige series (individual series) › Crime and thriller series › Police and detective procedurals
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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