NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Masters of Cinema Blu-ray (November 2026): Masters of Cinema. Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series presents all five films of Stockholm After Dark: Swedish Noir on three BBlu-rays. All are in their original 1.37:1 aspect ratio in 1080P, sourced from Swedish Film Institute restorations. A Woman’s Face shares a dual-layered disc with June Night with a supportive bitrate. While the Door Was Locked shares a dual-layered disc with While the City Sleeps, also with a supportive bitrate. Hidden in the Fog, the only film in the set from a 4K restoration, gets its own dual-layered disc with a max’ed out bitrate, about 1/3 higher than the other four.

The four 2K restorations are excellent. Grain is fine, consistent and film-like, with no evidence of heavy noise reduction, and contrast is strong, with rich blacks and well-gradated midtones. Detail is impressive for films of this age: the weave of Anna’s tweed coat and the texture of her scar make-up in A Woman’s Face, the knitwear and embroidered linens of June Night, the pearls and brushwork-visible paintings of While the Door Was Locked, and the shearling collars and leather jackets of While the City Sleeps. The images are remarkably clean, with almost no speckles or scratches. Occasional softer or grainier shots, such as a few in A Woman’s Face, look true to the original photography rather than any transfer problem. June Night’s darker, dappled-light scenes show slightly heavier grain in the shadows without crush. While the Door Was Locked has a slightly lighter grey scale overall, in keeping with its brighter cinematography.

Hidden in the Fog is the visual high point. The 4K source and the higher bitrate show in the tighter, finer grain and in exceptional detail, especially in Gunnar Fischer’s extreme close-ups, where every pore, wrinkle, eyelash and tear is visible. The deep blacks of the silhouetted gunman against a leaded diamond-pane window and the bars of shadow slicing across faces are rendered with real depth and no crush. It looks wonderful in motion and is easily the most film-like presentation in the set.

NOTE: We have added 198 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Masters of Cinema use linear PCM dual-mono tracks in the original Swedish language. A Woman’s Face, the oldest, shows its age most: the high end is limited, and louder passages of Eric Bengtson’s score can sound scratchy, though dialogue is always clear. The later films are progressively cleaner and fuller, culminating in Hidden in the Fog, where Erik Nordgren’s unusual score of timpani, bassoon, harp and triangle comes through with surprising presence. The three commentaries are offered as separate English tracks. The one on Hidden in the Fog is 16-bit linear PCM, and the other two are Dolby Digital. Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release, are offered on all five films, and the discs are Region 'B'-locked Blu-rays.

Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Blu-ray extras package is generous. Disc One has a new audio commentary on A Woman’s Face by noir expert Imogen Sara Smith, author of In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City. She places the film within proto-noir and the melodrama traditions it draws on. A Woman’s Case is a new interview, almost 18 minutes, with film historian and critic Pamela Hutchinson on the early Swedish career of Ingrid Bergman, useful context for both of the Bergman films in the set. Also on the disc is Cat Across the Road (1937), a 1/4 hour short by Gunnar Skoglund about filmmaking at Gamla Filmstaden in Stockholm, featuring an early appearance by Bergman herself.

Disc Two has a new audio commentary on While the Door Was Locked by crime cinema expert Sergio Angelini (The Researcher's Guide: Film, Television, Radio, and Related Documentation Collections in the UK,) host of the Tipping My Fedora podcast. Angelini returns with The Bad Die Young, a new 26-minute video essay on While the City Sleeps and juvenile delinquency in world noir, which places the film among its international counterparts.

Disc Three has a new audio commentary on Hidden in the Fog by film historian David Kalat (The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse: A Study of the Twelve Films and Five Novels.) Stockholm Stories is a new 22-minute video essay by film critic and author Mikaela Kindblom (The Swedish Dream Factory: The Story of Filmstaden in Råsunda,) director of the Filmstaden Foundation, on how Swedish noir depicts the city, a natural theme for this set. Finally, Rhythm of a City (1947) is Arne Sucksdorff’s almost 18-minute expressionist portrait of a day in 1940s Stockholm, winner of the Academy Award for Best Short Subject. Sucksdorff was also an assistant director on June Night.

The Limited Collector’s Edition (2,000 copies) comes in a hardbound slipcase with interior packaging featuring new artwork by Mute. It includes a 60-page book with a new extended introduction to the Swedish crime film by film scholar Fredrik Gustafsson, author of The Man from the Third Row: Hasse Ekman, Swedish Cinema and the Long Shadow of Ingmar Bergman, and new notes on all five films by film noir expert Barry Forshaw, author of Nordic Noir: The Pocket Essential Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction, Film & TV.

Swedish end titles have been raising English-speaking eyebrows for decades. THIS just means ‘end’.

Stockholm After Dark: Swedish Noir traces Sweden finding its own way to noir, from the glossy Svensk Filmindustri melodramas of the late 1930s, through Hasse Ekman's sophisticated one-night ensemble piece, to Lars-Eric Kjellgren's two films, the gritty While the City Sleeps and the fog-shrouded, twist-laden Hidden in the Fog. A young Ingrid Bergman (Autumn Sonata, Murder on the Orient Express, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Indiscreet, Anastasia, Elena and Her Men, Journey to Italy, Europe '51, Stromboli, Under Capricorn, Joan of Arc, Arch of Triumph, Notorious, The Bells of St. Mary's, Spellbound, Gaslight, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Casablanca, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Intermezzo) anchors the first two films, playing women marked by violence and scandal who try to remake themselves, before Hollywood took her for good.  The supporting casts are a who's who of the Swedish cinema that fed Ingmar Bergman's golden age: Gunnar Björnstrand in While the Door Was Locked (Fanny and Alexander, Autumn Sonata, Face to Face, The Rite, Shame, Persona, Winter Light, Through a Glass Darkly, The Devil's Eye, The Magician, Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Dreams, Smiles of a Summer Night, A Lesson in Love, Sawdust and Tinsel, Waiting Women, Torment,) a young Harriet Andersson (Fanny and Alexander, Cries and Whispers, All These Women, Through a Glass Darkly, Dreams, Smiles of a Summer Night, A Lesson in Love, Sawdust and Tinsel, Summer with Monika,) in While the City Sleeps  alongside Barbro Hiort af Ornäs (Scenes from a Marriage, Shame,) and Ekman's then-wife Eva Henning (Girl with Hyacinths, Prison, Thirst,) as the woman on the run in Hidden in the Fog, shot in inky chiaroscuro by Bergman's future cinematographer Gunnar Fischer (The Devil's Eye, The Magician, Wild Strawberries, The Seventh Seal, Smiles of a Summer Night, Dreams, Summer with Monika, Waiting Women, Summer Interlude, To Joy, Thirst, Port of Call,). Eureka's Masters of Cinema Blu-rays present all five from Swedish Film Institute restorations with strong, film-like transfers, faithful 24-bit linear PCM mono, and Hidden in the Fog, from its 4K restoration and with a max'ed out bitrate, is the jewel of the set. Three new commentaries, four new interviews and video essays, two vintage shorts including Arne Sucksdorff's Oscar-winning Rhythm of a City, and a substantial 60-page book make this one of the most rewarding discoveries of the year. A treasure for noir fans and anyone curious about Swedish cinema before, and around, Ingmar Bergman. Strongly recommended! 

Gary Tooze