If you're looking for something new and different to watch then look no further than Channel 4 and its offshoot streaming service Walter Presents.

Walter Presents launched back in 2016 and is an on-demand platform featuring a hand-picked selection of award-winning foreign-language dramas.

The content is curated by Walter Iuzzolino, an Italian TV producer who considers three criteria when making his choices: the shows must have had mainstream success in their home countries; they must have outstanding writing, acting and directing; and they must have been critically acclaimed.

"It's a balance of being innovative so we never become repetitive, but also to bring viewers what they love," Iuzzolino tells us. "I knew there were thousands of great shows all over the world that were not being shown because there was that subtitle stigma.

"Walter Presents is like opening the club. The more people love it, the more people will talk about it. It's a bit of a mission to ensure that as many people as possible get to appreciate the joys of international drama."

Iuzzolino says that Italy, France and Eastern Europe are the places to look out for when it comes to new drama, and that Dutch series, like The Adulterer, are consistently ranking highly.

"It's like going on a sexy city break without leaving your sofa," he adds. "Access to a different culture is also a nice counterpoint to all the tension and bad feeling that is in our world today. It encourages tolerance, open-mindedness and understanding of the other."

From hit German cold-war drama Deutschland 89, which the service launched with, and supernatural Italian series The Red Door to Ukraine's Hide and Seek (Pryatki), here are our picks of the best shows available to stream right now on Walter Presents. You're bound to find something you like.

Showing 1 to 24 of 34 results

  • The Silence

    • Drama

    Summary:

    A powerful, poignant Croatian and Ukrainian crime drama from Walter Presents. A cop and a reporter on a Croatian murder case cross paths with a Ukrainian expat who's searching for her missing niece.

    Why watch The Silence?:

    This Croatian-Ukrainian drama looks at the issue of human trafficking and is, inevitably, a bleak affair. It’s well constructed, however, with characters involving enough to make it more than watchable.

    A Croatian journalist forms an uneasy alliance with the police, while the Ukrainian wife of a politician hunts for her missing niece. In series two, Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, which upends everything.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Morten

    • 2019
    • Drama
    • Thriller

    Summary:

    Morten Mathijsen, an ambitious politician aiming to be Prime Minister, finds his path rendered rocky when dubious past actions dog his climb upwards. In Dutch

    Why watch Morten?:

    A Dutch political thriller with intrigue at every turn, like a naughty, pulpy Borgen. Morten Mathijsen (Peter Paul Muller) is the roguish deputy of a party with the potential to win the Netherlands’ next election. He could become a dangerously popular PM. But the women in his life — his meek, troubled wife, his wayward teen daughter, his sharp and assertive new stylist, and a young woman whose father’s death years ago is a clue to Morten’s sexy but shameful past — might bring him down. Oh, and he’s being blackmailed!

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • The Bank Hacker

    • 2021
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    After two years in prison, professional conman Alidor Van Praet needs to rebuild his illegal fortune.

    Why watch The Bank Hacker?:

    From Belgium comes a thriller where plans to manipulate streams of ones and zeroes quickly end up involving bullets, explosions and running for one’s life. Alidor (Gene Bervoets), a conman fresh out of prison, hires young hacker Jeremy (Tijmen Govaerts) to intercept some of the billions that flow electronically between banks every day. If they get it right and don’t get greedy, they’ll be very rich — but Jeremy is also on a personal revenge mission, and nothing in high-stakes dramas like these ever quite turns out the way it’s supposed to.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Arctic Circle

    • 2018
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Finnish crime drama, starring Iina Kuustonen

    Why watch Arctic Circle?:

    Back to chilly northern Finland, where life is anything but quiet. Detective Nina Kautsalo (Iina Kuustonen) is trying to lay low, but too much bad stuff is going on: Russian gangsters are marauding in the Murmansk forest or being assassinated on Finnish soil, while the cold case of a slain judo champ and the chief suspect, her ice-hockey-playing other half, has just been reanimated, 12 years after it profoundly affected Nina’s family. The game is on again.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Grow

    • 2020
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Newly qualified stockbroker Adam's world spirals after his father's death. At the funeral, his estranged brother Jakob, now a cop, reappears after leaving his former life behind.

    Why watch Grow?:

    Danish drama fans will be cheering familiar faces throughout the first episode of this series, which delves into the country’s drug trade. A startling pre-credits flashback shows us two young brothers witnessing a traumatic event involving their father – years later when he dies, his sons (Andreas and Sebastian Jessen) are drawn back to their home town and towards the underworld their father operated in. As they come at this new life from very different directions, a crime thriller with thoughtful character notes and artful direction develops.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Astrid: Murder in Paris

    • 2019
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Brilliant young Astrid Nielsen is autistic and a living encyclopaedia of criminal investigations. She has Asperger's syndrome, which makes her very somewhat quirky and rather finicky in some social situations. However, she is at her zenith investigating complex murder cases on the streets of Paris. Drama, starring Sara Mortensen and Lola Dewaere. In French

    Why watch Astrid: Murder in Paris?:

    Sara Mortensen gives a mesmerising performance as an autistic clerk in the police records department who, by chance, ends up using her puzzle-solving skills to help chaotic cop Raphaëlle Coste crack murder cases. The crimes are intriguing, but it’s the blossoming relationship between the chalk-and-cheese women that makes this so special. We also learn a lot about what it’s like being neurologically atypical. An odd-couple French drama that’s charming and fresh.

    Jane Rackham

    How to watch
  • Seaside Hotel

    • 2013
    • Drama
    • Comedy
    • 12

    Summary:

    Danish drama from Walter Presents set in the 1920s and 1930s. Wealthy guests, and not-so-wealthy staff and locals, make an annual hotbed of intrigue at a luxury seaside hotel.

    Why watch Seaside Hotel?:

    The most popular series in Denmark for 20 years, this comedy-drama is deliciously bright, breezy and beguiling. It’s 1931 and we join all the returning guests at the gorgeous beachside hotel that’s now run by good-hearted Fie (Rosalinde Mynster). A cross between a PG Wodehouse story and a French farce, it combines romance, sneaky business deals, bickering and intrigues set against the backdrop of sand dunes and big skies with writ-large characters wearing fabulous vintage costumes and delivering their lines in the most charming and amusing way. Hygge personified.

    Jane Rackham

    How to watch
  • Inspector Borowski

    • 2016
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Joined by his young colleague Sarah Brandt, veteran police inspector Klaus Borowski tackles disturbing and unsettling criminal cases in the city of Kiel.

    Why watch Inspector Borowski?:

    The third series of this quality German sleuther begins with a country-house mystery. Klaus Borowski (Axel Milberg) gets a surprise invitation to visit his estranged best pal. Which is strange because the men’s relationship soured some years ago when Borowski tried and failed to prove that the guy had killed his wife, but the case has now been revived in odd circumstances. Series one and two are also available on All 4 under the Walter Presents banner.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Hide and Seek

    • 2019
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Special investigators Varta Naumova and Max Shumov are assigned to a child abduction case when a little girl disappears mysteriously during a game of hide and seek in a small industrial town.

    Why watch Hide and Seek (Pryatki)?:

    The first Ukrainian series on Walter Presents, Hide and Seek was nominated for Best Central and Eastern European Series at the unfortunately named “Serial Killer Awards”. The 2019 series is also a cut above the average procedural, capitalising on brutalist urban landscapes and a solid central pairing to transcend the slightly familiar set-up.

    In a fading industrial town, a seven-year-old girl goes missing during a round of the eponymous game with her loving but flawed father. Other children then vanish, with each disappearance followed by the release of a short video of the child holding up four numbers. Enter Varta Naumova (Yuliya Abdel Fattakh) and Maksim Shumov (Vyacheslav Dovzhenko), she remote and private, he laid-back and personable, both bearing secrets. If it’s no surprise to discover they make an effective if unorthodox team, the setting is evocatively deployed and the performances steady.

    Gabriel Tate

    How to watch
  • Partisan

    • 2020
    • Thriller
    • Drama
    • 18

    Summary:

    Set in the idyllic surroundings of Jordnära, a gated community that runs a very successful organic farm. A man takes a job offer, soon learning about their unorthodox rules and routines.

    Why watch Partisan?:

    Threatening dappled sunlight, intimidating trees, unnervingly pristine barns and squads of blonde women wearing identical white T-shirts, doing yoga in an indefinably horrifying manner: yes, it’s season two of Sweden’s stylish drama about a gated farming community that definitely has something to hide. As the cult of Jordnara deals with financial difficulties, an incident attracts the attention of the police. Every artfully shot scene has a carefully composed air of cool weirdness about it.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • The Twelve

    • 2019
    • Drama
    • Thriller
    • 15

    Summary:

    Courtroom drama. In Dutch

    Why watch The Twelve?:

    Series at the classier, gloomier end of the crime drama spectrum like to show the impact of a case rippling sadly outwards, darkening everyone connected to it. This Belgian ten-parter takes that further by giving the jurors on a murder trial as much screen time as the defendant. While the story of a mum accused of killing her daughter (did she? At first, we’re nudged towards no) plays out, a dozen rain-lashed tales of festering middle-class crisis develop. One focus is on a nervy woman whose husband, as TV husbands so often are, is indefinably menacing. It’s a show full of secrets worth discovering.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Deutschland 89

    • 2020
    • Drama
    • Thriller
    • 15

    Summary:

    Martin Rauch experiences the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 during his activities as an East German spy.

    Why watch Deutschland 89?:

    All three parts of the Deutschland spy series are available on Walter Presents (83, 86 and 89) and they perfectly blend a coming-of-age story with a Cold War thriller. The series tells the story of Martin Rauch, who is sent from East Germany by his aunt in the Secret Service to act as a spy in West Germany. RadioTimes.com called Deutschland 83 “an original take on a classic story”.

    How to watch
  • The Swingers

    • 2014
    • Drama

    Summary:

    Dutch drama with Daan Schuurmans and Bracha van Doesburgh. A young couple move into a new house on the outskirts of Amsterdam and become increasingly friendly with their neighbours.

    Why watch The Swingers?:

    This soapy Dutch drama is about Steef and Rebecca, a couple who are delighted when the attractive music journalist Peter and his teacher girlfriend Eva move in next door. With themes of grief, crime and desperation, The Swingers is a domestic relationship thriller not to miss.

    How to watch
  • All the Sins

    • 2019
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective
    • 18

    Summary:

    A psychological crime drama of three seasons, each set in different era in a conservative christian community of rural northern Finland.

    Why watch All the Sins?:

    A young Finnish detective hunts for a serial killer in his home town, making him confront his own past in this intense crime drama. Set in a deeply religious community, the series tackles homophobia and fanaticism and, conveniently, sin.

    How to watch
  • Redemption

    • 2020
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    In a nocturnal and hostile Rome, Valerio must investigate the death of his estranged son, an apparent suicide.

    Why watch Redemption?:

    When his adult son is found dead and his police-office old flame (Maya Sansa) gets in touch to say she doesn’t believe the official verdict of suicide, Valerio (Alessandro Gassman) must begin a process of painful rebuilding. Gorgeous cinematography that offsets profound sadnesses in the story and flashes of lyricism in the script elevate this Italian series well above the usual.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Locked Up

    • 2015
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective
    • 18

    Summary:

    Spanish drama with Maggie Civantos as Macarena Ferreiro, who is framed by her lover and boss for corporate fraud and ends up in a high-security jail surrounded by ruthless criminals.

    Why watch Locked Up?:

    Locked Up is a Spanish crime drama about a young woman who is sent to prison for tax offences. The series focuses on prison life, including the corruption of the officials. Locked Up was originally cancelled after two seasons but was revived by another channel for two more seasons, proving its enduring popularity and fanbase.

    How to watch
  • Red Light

    • 2020
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Three women get caught in the world of human trafficking, prostitution and organized crime when one their husbands disappears. The women, with a completely different background, meet on a similar turning point in their life.

    Why watch Red Light?:

    A saga about trafficked sex workers in Amsterdam and Antwerp, this Dutch drama certainly has a difficult subject matter but doesn’t descend into grim titillation.

    Instead, it neatly intertwines the lives of three disparate women: an opera singer with an errant husband and a detective for whom the case of a murdered young woman might distract from her unsatisfactory personal life are about to come into contact with a senior member of a criminal gang who is starting to doubt herself. They are carefully drawn characters in a convincingly nightmarish world.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • The Adulterer

    • 2011
    • Romance
    • Drama

    Summary:

    Drama from the Netherlands, originally titled Overspel. Sylvia Hoeks plays a photographer having a passionate affair with a defence attorney who's representing an accused murderer.

    Why watch The Adulterer? :

    Sex, murder and intrigue from the Netherlands, in a thriller about a defence lawyer (Fedja van Huet) who is irreversibly drawn to a photographer (Sylvia Hoeks). She’s married to a prosecution lawyer and you might have just guessed roughly where the story’s going, but the two leads make this more believable and less melodramatic than it might be.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • A French Case

    • 2021
    • Documentary and factual
    • Drama

    Summary:

    Fact-based crime drama about the murder of a four-year-old boy whose body was found in the Vologne River and the mysterious threats sent to his family. In French

    Why watch A French Case?:

    This Walter Presents series based on a true-life crime details the death of Grégory Villemin, a four-year-old French boy, who was found in the Vologne River close to his home in October 1984. His parents had been receiving anonymous threats from someone called “The Crow” so the police focused on finding him (or her), but others suspected a jealous family member — the Villemins had many secrets and feuds.

    Added to the tragedy is the shocking intrusiveness of the exclusive-hungry media and how incompetent or weak the investigating authorities were.

    Jane Rackham

    How to watch
  • Sins of the Fathers

    • 2019
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    A retired policeman and a former criminal, must face their past when their daughters' lives are suddenly put at risk in this gangster thriller shining a light on the dark and dangerous activities of the Warsaw Mafia.

    Why watch Sins of the Fathers?:

    Sins of the Fathers (Odwróceni. Ojcowie i córki) is an excellent Polish gangster series set in Warsaw in the present day.

    Lidka (Joanna Balasz) is a cop getting into trouble for roughing up violent criminals; Kaska (Eliza Rycembel) is a law graduate who looks set for a glamorous career. They’re linked by their dads: respectively, a retired police officer and a gangster who is meant to be retired, but whose unresolved crimes are about to tie the quartet together in unexpected ways.

    The contrast between the flawed, charismatic older men and their sometimes wiser, sometimes naive children gives the hard-boiled crime action an extra dimension.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • The Twelve - Cinderella Murder

    • Drama

    Summary:

    From Walter Presents comes an intense and richly characterised Belgian courtroom drama series about the juries on sensational murder trials

    Why watch The Twelve – Cinderella Murder?:

    Who killed Marianne Coens? Her stepdaughter has confessed to pushing her downstairs, but other evidence suggests the involvement of Julie’s father, Anton. She insists she acted alone, but is she just trying to protect her dad? Will they both be found guilty, or just one, or neither?

    That’s the basis for season two of a fine Belgian courtroom drama, but it’s only the half of it. We spend as much time at home with the jurors as we do in court, getting to know 12 people, all with their own problems that might colour their view of the evidence. The ebb and flow of conflicting testimonies sway us and them towards different conclusions, in a clever narrative.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Manayek

    • 2020
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    Izzy Bachar, a police internal affairs investigator, discovers just before retirement that his long time friend Barak, a senior police officer, is accused of being corrupt. Life as he knows it breaks into pieces.

    Why watch Manayek?:

    In 2021, this drama swept the board at Israel’s equivalent of the Baftas — it’s roughly that country’s answer to Line of Duty, albeit with slightly more of an action-thriller vibe. Izzy (Shalom Assayag) is an idealist, an honest cop in a dishonest world. He’s wearily approaching retirement when an assassination, brazenly carried out in public, sparks an investigation that uncovers corruption and secrets at the very top of Israeli society and law enforcement — with Izzy’s friend and former partner implicated.

    A world of complex, believable characters is soon sketched out.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Carmen Curlers

    • 2022
    • Drama

    Summary:

    Stylish Danish period drama from Walter Presents inspired by real events. In 1963, businessman Axel Byvang invests in an obscure invention. Will it spark to life or curl up into nothing?

    Why watch Carmen Curlers?:

    The lovingly realised period details may make this 1963-set Danish comedy drama a cosy watch, but it does have sharp teeth. When small-time businessman Axel (Morten Hee Andersen) becomes convinced that hair curlers are the future, it could be the last straw for his other half, Tove (Rosalinde Mynster) — or it could be the venture that makes his fortune.

    The plight of women in Danish society at the time is the serious undercurrent of a show that otherwise has an infectious, freewheeling vim.

    Jack Seale

    How to watch
  • Spiral of Lies

    • 2021
    • Drama
    • Crime/detective

    Summary:

    35-year-old Audrey, the only survivor of a mysterious serial killer who raged in the Biarritz region 16 years earlier, is brutally taken back to her past by a new crime: a 17-year-old girl is found murdered on the Basque coast. Nothing links this murder to the series of crimes committed in the early 2000s by the 'Itsas Killer,' but Audrey is certain that Itsas is back. To prove it, she must face her past--and her lies. Because that night, when she crossed paths with the killer, she lied. About everything. To everybody. Belgian crime drama, starring Camille Lou. In French

    Why watch Spiral of Lies?:

    As a girl, Audrey (Camille Lou) survived a brutal attack by a prolific serial killer called Itsas. Sixteen years later in Biarritz another teenager is murdered. Audrey, now a lawyer in Paris, suspects Itsas is back because the victim was wearing the necklace that Audrey had stolen the night she was attacked. She lied to the police about what happened to her but now she returns to Biarritz to help the new victim’s family.

    It’s an intriguing scenario but by the end of this French thriller’s first episode, it’s clear Audrey’s not the only one who’s been telling lies.

    Jane Rackham

    How to watch
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