The films in this trilogy—Christian Petzold's Beats Being Dead, Dominik Graf's Don't Follow Me Around, and Christoph Hochhäusler's One Minute of Darkness—show that Europe is still dominating crime cinema. (Europe took the lead in the second half of the previous decade with films like Caché, Tell No One, Revanche, Lorna's Silence, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.) The Dreileben Trilogy—which is set in a small German town and concerns a serial killer who has escaped from the police and society and is hiding in the woods surrounding this town—is a kind of celebration of Europe's current mastery of this form. They know and show that no other film industry is doing it better and smarter than they are.

Beats Being Dead, the first and by far the best film in the trilogy, is everything a thriller should be. It has a suspense whose source is mysterious, a class conflict at its dark core, young lovers who have lots of sex, and a surprise ending that involves a betrayal. The other two films are also deeply fascinating, particularly the second one, Don't Follow Me Around, which is not about the serial killer so much as about two women who are dealing with unresolved past issues (the film has a surprise revelation that concerns its hero, a psychiatrist and single mother). Do not miss this crime trilogy. You will love every minute of it. Northwest Film Forum, March 9–11 recommended