Nation’s Gambit (2026), originally titled En nasjon i sjakk, is a Norwegian action thriller directed by John Andreas Andersen and based on Johan Høst’s bestselling 2022 novel. The film stars Pål Sverre Hagen as Anton Block, the leader of the police emergency response unit Delta, alongside Penda Faal, Jon Øigarden, Maria Bonnevie, Tobias Santelmann and Erland Bakker. The story begins when Norway’s prime minister is kidnapped and later revealed inside a glass cage outside the Storting, with an explosive device around his neck. The terrorist responsible forces the authorities into a deadly game of chess in which every captured piece represents a human life, leaving Block and his team only 24 hours to identify the attacker and stop the killings. Rather than disguising its Norwegian setting, the film makes Oslo, the Storting and the country’s political institutions a central part of its large-scale action-thriller premise.
Nation’s Gambit (2026) was filmed in Oslo, Kvitfjell and other parts of Innlandet, with major studio work completed at Studio Fares in Trollhättan, Sweden. The Norwegian Parliament building in central Oslo is one of the film’s most important locations, and the production was allowed to shoot inside the real parliament building, including the sequence in which Anton Block rushes up the familiar staircase towards the Vandrehallen. Outside, Eidsvolls plass provides the setting for one of the film’s central images: a large trailer arrives directly in front of the Storting before its sides are blown open, revealing the kidnapped prime minister imprisoned inside a transparent cage. The mountain sequences were filmed at Kvitfjell, which was used for scenes at both the beginning and end of the film, while substantial additional filming took place elsewhere in Innlandet. Not everything presented as the Storting was filmed in Oslo. At Studio Fares in Trollhättan, the production constructed a detailed replica of the office of the President of the Storting, complete with its parquet floor, conference table and adjoining rooms. Parts of the set were also dressed as offices used by the Norwegian Police Security Service, with large photographic backdrops of Oslo placed outside the windows to extend the illusion. The mixture of genuine government buildings, recognisable central Oslo streets, snowy Norwegian landscapes and carefully reconstructed interiors allows the film to keep its distinctly Norwegian setting while working on the scale of an international action thriller.
Eidsvolls plass
Eidsvolls plass, the public square directly in front of the Norwegian Parliament building, has appeared in Max Manus (2008) and En nasjon i sjakk (2026).