Film
The Guilty
A one-location, real-time thriller told almost entirely through a phone line and Jakob Cedergren's face. A demoted cop working an emergency-dispatch desk takes a call that might be a kidnapping, and the film never leaves the room with him. It's tense, claustrophobic, and asks you to build an entire crime from voices alone — for anyone who likes their thrillers stripped down to nerve and inference.
If you liked this
Locke2014
Tom Hardy drives a motorway in real time, taking call after call as his life quietly detonates. Same stripped-back method: one man, one space, phone calls doing all the plot work.
But It's even more minimal than The Guilty — literally just a car interior. Patience required.

The Call2013no page yet
Halle Berry plays a 911 operator trying to save a kidnapped teen over the phone. The most direct genre cousin here — dispatcher-as-hero thriller, tense and propulsive.
But Goes broader and pulpier in its back half than The Guilty ever does; some will find the ending a stretch.
Phone Booth2003
Colin Farrell, pinned in a booth by a sniper who calls the shots. Another single-location thriller where the phone is a weapon and a lifeline at once.
But Slicker and more theatrical than The Guilty's grounded realism — this one enjoys its own gimmick more.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Sorry, Wrong Number1948
Same structural engine as The Guilty: a person trapped in one space, armed only with a telephone, trying to convince strangers that an unseen crime is real.
A bedridden woman overhears what sounds like a murder plot on a crossed phone line and spends the film trying to get anyone to believe her. Voice-only dread, decades before The Guilty made it feel new.
But Stagey by modern standards — it began as a radio play and still sounds like one in places.

More like this (8)
12 Angry Men1957
One room, one set of facts, and the slow unravelling of certainty through argument alone. The purest ancestor of any thriller that trusts dialogue over spectacle.
But No hostage, no ticking clock in the same sense — this is deliberation, not adrenaline.

Buried2010
Ryan Reynolds, a coffin, a phone, ninety minutes. If The Guilty's confinement appealed, this pushes the idea to its most extreme, unbearable conclusion.
But Genuinely claustrophobic in a way that some viewers will find more unpleasant than gripping.

Nightcrawler2014
A morally compromised protagonist chasing his own redemption or ruin through the nighttime machinery of a city. Shares The Guilty's interest in a man whose judgment you can't quite trust.
But Colder and more cynical — no one here is trying to save anybody.

Prisoners2013
Guilt, obsession, and a crime that keeps re-shaping itself as more comes to light. Similar slow-burn dread and moral murk, just stretched to a bigger canvas.
But Nearly two and a half hours and considerably bleaker in tone.

Searching2018no page yet
A father hunts for his missing daughter entirely through screens and phone calls. Same tech-mediated tension and gradual reveal of a hidden situation.
But The screen-life gimmick can feel more novel than necessary once the plot takes over.
Rear Window1954
Hitchcock's classic about a man confined to one space, piecing together a crime from fragments he can't fully verify. The grandparent of every 'trust what you can't see' thriller.
But Older pacing and a very different visual language — this is voyeurism through binoculars, not a headset.

Sorry to Bother You2018
Both films make a phone voice the whole instrument of a moral compromise — what you say, and how you say it, becomes the thing you're guilty of.
A telemarketer discovers his 'white voice' opens doors that lead somewhere much darker. Sharp, funny, and increasingly unhinged, with a killer swerve into full sci-fi satire.
But Tonally wild — broad comedy tips into surreal horror, and not everyone wants that whiplash.

Casting JonBenet2017
Where The Guilty builds a crime out of one man's assumptions from a voice on a phone, this film exposes how many different, contradictory stories a community builds around a single unwitnessed act.
A documentary that restages a real, unsolved murder using dozens of actors who each bring their own theory of what happened. Uncomfortable, strange, and unexpectedly moving about how we assign guilt.
But No answers, no closure, and a formal experiment that some will find more academic than gripping.

People
Cast
Jakob CedergrenAsger Holm
Jessica DinnageIben (voice)
Omar ShargawiRashid (voice)
Johan OlsenMichael (voice)
Jacob LohmannBo (voice)- Katinka Evers-JahnsenMathilde (voice)
Jeanette LindbækNorth Zealand Shift Chief (voice)
Simon BennebjergJunkie (voice)
Laura BroJournalist (voice)
Morten SuurballeMan at Skælbækgade Street (voice)- Guuled Abdi YoussefMan at Nightclub (voice)
- Caroline LøppkeDrunk Woman (voice)
Directing
- Emelie AppelinAssistant Director
- Gustav MöllerDirector
- Nikolaj TarpFirst Assistant Director
Writing
- Emil Nygaard AlbertsenWriter
- Gustav MöllerWriter
Production
- Zissel Astrid Kjertum-MohrAssistant Production Manager
- Anja PhilipCasting
- Henrik ZeinExecutive Producer
- Lina FlintProducer
- Ada KaalundProduction Accountant
- Frank Skov LarsenProduction Accountant
- Kent DietrichsonProduction Accountant
- Lene MortensenProduction Accountant
- Mette Kloumann JensenProduction Accountant
- Peter JanumProduction Accountant
- Susanne BalsløvProduction Accountant
- Marianne ChristensenProduction Manager