The Man Who Played with Fire · United Kingdom (2023), about a Swedish case
Stieg Larsson, the author of the Millennium novels, spent years investigating who killed Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986. He died in 2004 without solving it.
In this four-part documentary, Jan Stocklassa, a former Swedish diplomat, follows Larsson’s research. According to the series’ own description, he found it by chance and became convinced that the answers could be found in it. The files lead him to people who may have been involved, and in the end he gives his work to the police. The series is based on his 2018 book of the same name, which reportedly says that Larsson suspected South Africa’s apartheid-era intelligence services. That is a theory, not a proven fact.
The case is officially closed, but it is still debated. In June 2020 Swedish prosecutors named Stig Engström as the likely killer and ended the investigation, because he had died in 2000. Many people in Sweden remain unconvinced, and the series presents Larsson’s and Stocklassa’s research instead.
Despite the Swedish setting, this is a British production. It was made by Raw TV for Sky Documentaries, with Discovery as co-producer. It is mainly in English, with some Swedish interviews subtitled in English. Please do not confuse it with the Swedish documentary film of the same name, directed by Henrik Georgsson in 2018.
As announced in 2023, Sky has the rights in the UK, Italy and Germany, and Discovery in Scandinavia, the Benelux countries, France, Iberia, Poland and Turkey. Availability can change, so please check your local service. More about the series: https://www.sky.com/watch/series/4df32e63-975e-3d5d-b519-9e12c9c1e9d8
Updated on 15 October 2026. We corrected the country of production (the United Kingdom, not Sweden) and removed statements about the files and the case that we could not confirm.
