Dealer

In the same year that Trainspotting became a global sensation, the then twenty-six-year-old Nicolas Winding Refn released his own vision of drug addiction. His film follows a week in the life of a Copenhagen dealer, moving through different layers of that world - from street-level hustlers through nightclubs and gyms to the underworld controlled by Serbian mobsters. The protagonist, who starts out aiming for a big score, finds himself in a desperate fight for his own survival after a series of unfortunate turns.

Refn's crime thriller combines the formal asceticism of the Danish Dogma 95 manifesto with the dynamism of music videos: he captures action with a digital camera in long, fluid shots, yet doesn't shy away from bold musical accompaniment or genre elements. The raw visual style gives the film a naturalistic edge, pushing the story of rise and fall within organized crime toward existential thriller territory.

The film's success owes much to its casting - led by Kim Bodnia and Mads Mikkelsen, who would become stars not only at home but internationally in the years to come.