Riget (English title: The Kingdom) is a Danish absurdist supernatural horror miniseries trilogy created by Lars von Trier and Tómas Gislason. Set in the neurosurgical ward of Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet (lit. 'The National Hospital', nicknamed "Riget", lit. 'the realm' or 'the kingdom'), each episode of the show takes place over a single day, and follows the hospital's eccentric staff and patients as they encounter bizarre and sometimes supernatural phenomena. The series is notable for its wry humor, its muted sepia colour scheme, and the appearance of a chorus of dishwashers with Down syndrome, who discuss in intimate detail the strange occurrences in the hospital. The main theme's song was written by von Trier himself.

The first series of four episodes premiered from DR in November to December 1994, and was followed by a second series, Riget II, which aired in November 1997. A belated third and final series of five episodes directed by von Trier and written by von Trier with Niels Vørsel, entitled Exodus, began filming in 2021,^[1][2] was screened out of competition at the Venice Film Festival and at the Serial Killer festival in September 2022,^[3][4] and premiered in the Nordics on streaming platform Viaplay with the first two episodes on October 9. The series premiered in select regions between November 27 and December 25 on streaming platform MUBI.^[5]

Von Trier has credited David Lynch's 1990 television series Twin Peaks and the 1965 French miniseries Belphegor as inspirations for the series.^[6] The Kingdom itself inspired an American series, Kingdom Hospital, developed by novelist Stephen King; the American version aired on ABC between March and July 2004, and was cancelled after a single season.

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Each episode of all three series opens with the same prologue, detailing how the hospital, Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, was built on the site of the "bleaching ponds", which recur in the name of the street of the hospital's official address, Blegdamsvej, although the exact significance of the reference is never explicitly discussed in the series.

The show begins with the admission of a spiritualist patient, Sigrid Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes), who hears the sound of a girl crying in the elevator shaft. Upon investigation, Drusse discovers that the girl had died decades earlier, having been killed by her father to hide her illegitimacy. In order to put the spirit to rest, Drusse searches for the girl's body and ultimately finds it preserved in a specimen jar in the office of the hospital's professor of pathology, Professor Bondo (Baard Owe).

Meanwhile, neurosurgeon Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Järegård), a recent appointee from Sweden to the neurosurgery department, tries to cover up his responsibility for a botched operation which left a young girl in a persistent vegetative state.

Pathologist Dr. Palle Bondo (Baard Owe) attempts to convince the family of a man dying from liver cancer to donate his liver to the hospital for Bondo's research. (In fact, Bondo wants it as a trophy, as it is the second largest hepatosarcoma ever recorded.) When denied, Bondo has the cancerous liver transplanted into his own body (as the patient signed an organ donor form), so that the cancer will become his personal property and can be kept within the hospital.

Amongst other plotlines, a young medical student becomes attracted to the nurse in charge of the sleep research laboratory, a ghostly ambulance appears and disappears every night, a junior doctor runs a black market in medical supplies, and a neurosurgeon discovers that she was impregnated by a ghost and that the baby in her womb is developing abnormally rapidly. In every episode, two dishwashers (each with Down syndrome) in the cellar discuss the strange happenings at Riget, and Helmer screams his famous catchphrase: "Danskjävlar!" (subtitled as "Danish scum", but literally "Danish devils").

In the third series, Exodus, sleepwalker Karen Svensson finds herself at Rigshospitalet, investigating the fallout of the fatal power outage at the end of the second series. Exodus also introduces Dr. Helmer, Jr. (Mikael Persbrandt), the neurotic son of the late Stig Helmer, and a new addition to the staff of Riget.^[7] Helmer Jr. is threatened with a lawsuit after making sexual advances to a female colleague in the hospital, has to consult a Swedish lawyer (Alexander Skarsgard), son of the lawyer from season 2..^[3]

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The four-episode first series of Riget was aired by Danish broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) from 24 November to 15 December 1994. The English subtitled version The Kingdom aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Two from 1 to 9 April 1997.

The four-episode second series, Riget II, aired on DR between 10 and 31 October 1997. The English subtitled version The Kingdom II aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Two from 28 July to 1 September 2001.

The five-episode third series, Riget: Exodus, premiered on streaming platform MUBI on 27 November 2022, with its fifth and final episode premiering on Christmas Day.^[5]

Horror novelist Stephen King discovered the five-hour theatrical edit of Riget in a video store during production of the 1997 TV miniseries adaptation of The Shining,^[15] and, finding it "both funny and scary",^[29] promptly set out to obtain the rights to the series for an American adaptation. At that time, the rights were owned by Columbia Pictures, who had intended to adapt the series as a two-hour theatrical film. King negotiated with Columbia for the rights, ultimately exchanging them for the option to his novella "Secret Window, Secret Garden" (which Columbia adapted in 2004 as the feature film Secret Window).^[15]

King's thirteen episode television adaptation, titled Kingdom Hospital, broadcast between March and July 2004 on ABC. Often directly adapting storylines from the original series, Kingdom Hospital was set in a hospital in Lewiston, Maine, which was on the site of a mill built before the Civil War. Many character names were derived from their Danish equivalents, e.g., Sigrid Drusse became Sally Druse and Stig Helmer became Dr. Stegman. In a departure from the plot of Riget, the American series introduces a new protagonist, a comatose patient, Peter Rickman, inspired by King's own experience of being hit by a minivan,^[15] and a talking giant anteater, the spirit guide Anubis/Antubis.

Although King and co-writer Richard Dooling developed an outline for a second series, ratings dropped throughout the season. Kingdom Hospital was placed on indefinite hiatus following a "major network shake-up", and was never picked up for a second series.^[29]

• List of ghost films