Poland has been blessed in recent years by some hard-hitting and well-directed crime series in the neo-noir style. Amongst the best of these has been Odwroceni / Converts (2007).



A convert is someone who crosses the line - it might be a gang member who feeds information to the police or perhaps a policeman who tips off a gang to a potential raid. In this excellent series, the protagonists live on either side of the law but morality and justice become blurred as the series unfolds and it becomes unclear who are the protectors and who are the criminals. The series made stars of its protagonists, Artur Zmijewski as the policeman Sikora and Robert Wieckiewicz as the gang leader Blacha.


Weronika Rosati

Pitbull (2005-08) featured the charismatic Weronika Rosati. Her on-off lover was Despero (Marcin Dorocinski) - the series is set amidst the turmoil of the Warsaw underworld.


Scene from Kriminalni.

Kriminalni (2005-08) followed the life and work of police officers from the elite Criminal Terror and Murder Division of the Warsaw Metropolitan Police; the title refers to police officers in the crime section. The three main characters were Adam Zawada (Marek Wlodarczyk), an experienced, tough cup, his younger colleague Marek Brodecki (Maciej Zakoscielny) and the marvellous Barbara (Basia) Storosz (Magdalena Schejbal), an ambitious female officer who in the first season joins the team just after graduating.

Oh, and Veronica Mars has been pretty popular in Poland too.......