Sightlines · reception

How Riders of Justice was received

2020 · Anders Thomas Jensen · Riders of Justice on Sightlines

The arc

Slipped out mid-pandemic (Denmark late 2020, a quiet US release in 2021) and then became a pure word-of-mouth phenomenon — the streaming-era 'why did nobody tell me about this' film that fans now press on each other like a secret.

What’s debated

The evergreen fight: was this, and not the Oscar-winning Another Round, actually the best Mads Mikkelsen movie of 2020 — and was it wrong to market a film this tender as a revenge actioner?

Its footprint

Bald, blue-bearded Markus became an instant Mikkelsen-iconography entry, and because it's set at Christmas the film has joined the 'unconventional Christmas movie' rotation alongside the Die Hard crowd.

Where it stands

A Letterboxd word-of-mouth darling and the standard gateway drug into Anders Thomas Jensen's filmography of sad, strange men.

Did you know? Mads Mikkelsen has starred in every single feature Anders Thomas Jensen has directed — from Flickering Lights (2000) through The Green Butchers, Adam's Apples and Men & Chicken to this one — alongside fellow troupe regulars Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro.