The 40 most popular 1930s german movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Steputat & Co.
1938 · 1h 27m · DE
A rich East Prussian shopkeeper,jealous that one of his male employees is in love with a female employee he himself covets, frames the couple for stealing lottery tickets.


Delikatessen
1930 · 1h 18m · DE
Friends Franz and Bela work in a deli belonging to Mr. Wallis. Franz is the manager and Bela a salesclerk. Both get to know the lovely Lilo. But while Bela is rebuffed, the charming womanizer Franz is more successful. After a boisterous celebration in the deli, Mr. Wallis tells Franz to get lost and hires Lilo as a new salesperson. Franz and Bela take a job at Mr. Markow's deli across the street and a serious competition begins between the two delis for survival.


Glückliche Reise
1933 · 1h 23m · DE
This operetta adaptation centers on two men who return to Hamburg from Brazil: one seeks a woman for love whereas the other seeks a woman who claims to be an heiress.


M
1931 · 1h 50m · DE
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.


The Traitor
1936 · 1h 32m · DE
This 1936 film tells the story of the doings of foreign agents in Germany and their allies among the German population. Having placed an ad in a local paper looking for "contact with bigwigs in German industry", enemy agents Morris and Geyer end up making contact with an engineer named Brockau. Brockau has developed an improvement in turning oil into gasoline and that's just what these enemy agents are looking for. Brockau, for his part, needs money, because his girlfriend is a selfish cow who demands more and more toys and trinkets, which has put our naive little nerd deep into debt. Brockau, however, is not the only unwitting maroon to fall into the clutches of the evil agents: the former bank agent Hans Klemm, now doing his service in the Wehrmacht, ends up being contacted by an agent from the other side and ends up getting blackmailed into working for them.


The Csardas Princess
1934 · 1h 35m · DE
Sylva Varescu is an operetta singer performing Kálmán's Die Czardasfürstin through Europe with great success. Before going to Vienna she meets handsome Prinz Weylerstein and they fall in love. Offered a contract for America, she doubts until she finds out that he is already engaged to a countess.


Familie Schimek
1935 · 1h 25m · DE
For three difficult orphans living by her aunt the former employee of the family searches a new premouth; he releases with it a result of tumultuous involvements. - Humble-entertaining mistake farce, completely fitted on Hans Moser.


Petersburger Nächte
1935 · DE
No overview available
Das Ehesanatorium
Das Ehesanatorium
1938 · 1h 25m · DE
No overview available


The Assumption of Hannele
1934 · 1h · DE
The story of Hannele, an unhappy girl who is beaten by her stepfather and tries to commit suicide.


Immortal Waltz
1939 · 1h 36m · AT
Johann Strauss firmly established himself as the leader of a dance orchestra in Vienna in the 1840s. His sons Johann junior and Josef have clearly inherited their father's talent. Nevertheless, father Johann is strictly opposed to both of them training as composers.


High School
1934 · 1h 30m · DE
The love of a young Austrian aristocrat to a circus rider is put on a heavy load test when becomes obvious that the former officer has killed the brother of the young woman, a traitor of the country, in the duel.


Miss Madame
1934 · 1h 25m · DE
On their honeymoon in St. Moritz,a new husband who is much older than his young bride is driven to despair when he thinks she prefers to spend her time with a younger man there, an actor.


My Leopold
1931 · DE
No overview available


Maria Ilona
1939 · 1h 34m · DE
In 1848, the freedom-loving Hungarian people, led by Ludwig Kossuth, rose up against the hated rule of the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. In its expansionist policy, the Austrian monarchy had long relied on Hungarian feudal lords who betrayed the interests of their people. The anger of the rebels was directed against the Austrian oppressors and their Hungarian supporters. Against the backdrop of these historical events, the personal fate of the Hungarian patriot Maria Ilona is shown.
The Tramps
The Tramps
1937 · 1h 35m · DE
Two members of a traveling troupe are reduced to the status of hoboes. They pretend to be a famous composer and his colleague, to improve their prospects.


Princess Sissy
1939 · 1h 24m · AT
Sissy (a character Romy Schneider would later popularize in the 50s) is Duke Maximilian of Bavaria's favorite daughter.The gift of a necklace,meant for her, falls into the hands of a crooked circus director.


Three Girls Around Schubert
1936 · 1h 33m · DE
Composer Franz Schubert becomes involved with a family with three daughters, falling in love with the two blonds, first one, then the other; but will he notice the quiet brunet third daughter, who has fallen madly in love with him?
Two Women
Two Women
1938 · 1h 22m · DE
The famous actress Paula Corvey loves the young racer Werner Bruck. One day, Paula's 18-year old daughter returns unexpectedly to her mother. She was living with her father, Paula's ex-husband, but she's run off to Paula, because daddy wouldn't let her become a hot-to-trot actress like mama. Paula just doesn't know what to do. That she's the mother of a grown up girl is something she desperately wants to hide from Werner (no, honey, I swear: you don't look a day over 17 ... uh huh). So, to cover her little horny tracks, she tells Werner that Eva is her cousin. The plan backfires (ha ha!), when Werner falls for the "cousin". When Werner finally discovers the truth, a conflict develops (duhh!), which can only be solved by Paula finding a man her own age (thank you).


Fridericus
1937 · 1h 38m · DE
In 18th century Europe, King Friedrich II of Prussia leads his army through the seven-years-war with neighboring states, and after numerous near defeats, eventually brings a victorious army back to Berlin.


The forest girl
1931 · 1h 30m · DE
No overview available


Covered Tracks
1938 · 1h 21m · DE
Séraphine and her mother arrive in Paris to visit the 1867 World Exhibition. In an overcrowded city they must be accommodated in separate hotels. During the night the mother, who wasn't feeling very well, gets suddenly worse. When next morning Séraphine goes to meet her every trace of her presence has disappeared and everybody denies having ever met her. The bewildered young woman must find someone who believes her. Previous version of So Long at the Fair (1950).


Waltz Paradise
1931 · DE
Musical comedy about a famous opera star in Vienna.


Ariane
1931 · 1h 23m · DE
Ariane was Hungarian director Paul Czinner's first talking picture. Starring in the title role is Czinner's charming wife, Elizabeth Bergner, likewise making her talkie debut. Young, naive Ariane sets herself for an emotional fall when she falls in love with Konstantin (Rudolf Forster), a much older and very married businessman. For his part, Konstantin regards the girl as just another harmless fling -- until he realizes a shade too late that he's really in love with her after all. Filmed in German, Ariane was simultaneously lensed in an English-language version, The Loves of Ariane.


Queen of Love
1935 · 1h 6m · DE
An opera tenor replaces a humble performer in a honky tonk show and wins the heart of the soprano.


The Jumping Jack
1930 · DE
Herr Eickmeyer is a wealthy parfumier: well past middle age, and stout with it. His blonde wife Lissy is much younger, pretty and vivacious. Since Eickmeyer can't keep up with his young wife, he commissions a companion for her in the form of a life-sized talking clockwork man, purchased for 5,000 deutschemarks ... to be shipped to his home immediately it's assembled.


Modern dowry
1932 · 1h 23m · DE
Dan Douglas is a typical Scottish. When his niece Evelyne marries engineer Fred Keller aboard the ship to Scotland, he gives her a pearl necklace as dowry, but it's false. The newlyweds face their differences when the necklace gets lost.


Trapeze
1931 · 1h 35m · FR
Robby and Jim are two friends working in a circus. When Marina, a new acrobat, enters the show, both men will compete for her love. She needs a partner for a flying number, and one of them will be elected. Then accidents will happen.


Two Souls
1930 · 1h 48m · DE
Gustav Froehlich and Charlotte Susa play Rochus and Judith, the zwei menschen (two humans) of the title. Rochus' domineering mother insists that he enter the priesthood, but he is reluctant to break up his blissful romance with the fair Judith. A religious fanatic of the first order, the mother swears before God and her Church that Rochus will indeed take his vows. When this does not come about, she dies of grief, whereupon the guilt-stricken Rochus abandons Judith to become a priest. The girl subsequently commits suicide -- and it is Rochus who must officiate over her body during the funeral. This final scene was excised from the print of Zwei Menschen released in New York, leaving audiences hanging in regard to Judith's ultimate fate.
Verliebtes Abenteuer
Verliebtes Abenteuer
1938 · DE
Charming Tom is pursuing fine Olivia both cheerfully and stubbornly. At first, she rejects him brutally; but then she finds pleasure in this intrusive guy, who’s following her everywhere. They spend an evening together; but afterwards, Olivia determines, that a valuable bracelet has been stolen from her. Now she thinks Tom is the infamous jewel thief, who’s been terrorizing the neighborhood.


The Optimist
1938 · 1h 24m · DE
A moron buys a worthless piece of land, which a swindler passed off as an oil field.


Last Stop
1935 · 1h 30m · DE
Endstation offers the American viewer tantalizing glimpses of busy, bustling mid-1930s Vienna. Otherwise, this minor yarn of an amorous streetcar conductor is strictly formula material. The film benefits from the star power of Paul Horbiger, resplendently garbed in an elaborate conductor's uniform. Also worth noting is the performance of Maria Andergest as the woebegone hatmaker whose fate is inextricably linked with hero Horbiger. Incidentally though the direction is credited with one E. W. Emo, Paul Horbiger actually called most of the shots on Endstation.


Miss Lilli
1936 · 1h 26m · AT
Lilli, daughter of a large family, finds job at a jewelry shop, and is taken to Montecarlo by her boss to, under a false identity, make the jewels appeal to rich customers.Only they are stolen,seemingly by the young man she has fallen for..


Roses from the South
1934 · 1h 33m · DE
Johann Strauss helps the business of a Viennese wine merchant and his daughter by showing up to conduct the orchestra at a party.


Perpetrator Wanted
1931 · 1h 25m · DE
A dedicated editor, who is engaged to the daughter of a wealthy senator thrills her father with a lecture about convictions based on circumstantial evidence. When a corpse with a disfigured face is found in the house of the senator, evidence points to the editor. An entertaining thriller with a fairly intricate plot and some critical comments on the practice of the law. Based on the novel "Der geschlossene Ring" by Frank Arnau.
Frühlingsluft
Frühlingsluft
1938 · 1h 24m · DE
At the behest of the financially strapped Duke, his nephew, Crown Prince Rudolf, is to marry someone of suitable rank. But Rudolf has no interest whatsoever in his uncle's plans and works under his commoner's name as an engineer in a car factory. Then a certain Count Rasumirski appears before the Duke and explains that the famous operetta diva Vera Naldi is actually a Russian princess who knows nothing of her origins. They hatch a plan to marry Rudolf off to her. But at the theater, Rudolf falls not for the singer, but for the secretary. Instead, Rudolf's other uncle begins to take an interest in Vera. Then, however, it turns out that Rasumirski is an imposter and Vera is not a princess at all...


Bookkeeper Kremke
1930 · 1h 1m · DE
In this realistic, unsentimental portrait of Germany’s dire economic situation, a middle-aged payroll clerk loses his job due to technological advances and, unable to find another, descends into despair. The film’s director, Marie Harder, was one of only a few women directors of the time and was also the head of the German Social Democratic Film Office. She made only two known films before her accidental death in exile in Mexico in 1936.


Kaiserwalzer
1933 · DE
No overview available


Capriccio
1938 · 1h 46m · DE
Lilian Harvey plays a young heiress in long-ago France named Madelon who is raised by her grandfather as a boy in order to frighten away fortune hunters. But when the old man dies, her guardian Cesaire wants to marry her off to the rich prefect Barberousse. She is tricked by Cesaire with the portrait of a young man (Viktor von Staal) which is presented to her as that of her future husband. But when Madelone discovers this scheme she flees, again in men's clothing. But on her route to escape, she meets the young man from the portrait and falls in love with him. But Madelone can't give up her disguise right now...


The Other
1930 · 1h 35m · DE
A psychological drama based on the popular Jekyll and Hyde theme involving a strict legal official. Based on the 1893 play "Der Andere" by Paul Lindau.
The 1930s were the studio system at full power, with sound now fully integrated and the Production Code arriving mid-decade to sharply narrow what films could depict. It's the decade of the Universal monster cycle, screwball comedy, and the first Technicolor spectacles.
German cinema's two great periods bookend the century: Weimar-era Expressionism, whose shadows and angles built the visual grammar of horror and noir, and the New German Cinema of the 1970s under Fassbinder, Herzog, and Wenders.