1940s German Movies
The 40 most popular 1940s german movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.
TMDB5.0
Romantische Brautfahrt
1944 · DE
No overview available
TMDB4.0
Geliebte Welt
1942 · DE
No overview available
Brüderlein fein
TMDB2.9
Brüderlein fein
1942 · DE
A young Viennese actor is having much success on the stage; but intrigue and confusion in his love life are making his life a living Hell.
Vienna 1910
TMDB2.5
Vienna 1910
1943 · DE
Vienna 1910 is a 1943 German biographical film directed by Emerich Walter Emo and starring Rudolf Forster, Heinrich George and Lil Dagover. It is based on the life of Mayor of Vienna Karl Lueger. Its antisemitic content led to it being banned by the Allied Occupation forces following the Second World War.
TMDB2.9
Andreas Schlüter
1942 · 1h 51m · DE
Historical drama portraying the life of German baroque architect Andreas Schlüter.
TMDB3.5
Der Bagnosträfling
1949 · DE
No overview available
TMDB3.1
Liebeskomödie
1943 · 1h 29m · DE
No overview available
TMDB3.5
Comedy Times Three
1949 · 1h 32m · DE
Art student Ulla lies to her older sister Ilse, claiming to be posing for sculptor Professor Viktor Arnim. To confront him, Ilse visits him that very evening. In her excitement, she forgets her handbag, which the professor immediately notices. Ilse clearly doesn't dislike Viktor and no longer wants to appear as the strict sister. So she lies to Viktor and his friend Philipp Geiger, who is also present, telling him that her handbag was stolen by a man named Meier. Viktor and Philipp immediately offer to retrieve it. Sure enough, the famous boxer Willi Meier lives in the neighborhood. Viktor and Philipp also find a woman's handbag in his apartment, which they secretly take with them.
TMDB3.4
Alarm
1941 · 1h 30m · DE
No overview available
TMDB2.9
Tolle Nacht
1943 · 1h 20m · DE
The niece of a wealthy manufacturing aunt has secretly married. Her husband has lost his way during the night in his pajamas at a spa and ended up on the balcony of an attractive singer.
TMDB3.5
Annelie
1941 · 2h 50m · DE
On New Year′s Eve 1871 Annelie is born – 15 minutes too late, since her parents had calculated her birth to be exactly at midnight. These 15 minutes will again and again become the girl′s fate.
TMDB3.5
Seitensprünge
1940 · 1h 32m · DE
A diligent office worker and a cheeky sales representative are tasked by their boss with reserving a first-class hotel room with a bathroom for a visiting Hamburg exporter and his wife. A misunderstanding leads to non-stop confusion, because the office worker is spending his first wedding anniversary with his wife in the rented hotel room.
Sophienlund
TMDB4.8
Sophienlund
1943 · 1h 32m · DE
The successful writer Erich Eckberg lives with his wife Sigrid and their three children -- the twins, Knut and Michael and the daughter Gabriel -- on their estate "Sophienlund". On their sons' 21st birthday, Eckberg tells them the great family secret: Knut and Michael aren't his children (happy birthday, kids ... oh! and did I mention Santa Claus doesn't exist either?). But thankfully, the news gets better: their real mother died giving birth to them (guilt trip ... guilt trip!) and the Eckbergs decided to adopt the boys and bring them up in a proper family (no doubt so they could shatter their lives with this tale on their 21st birthday). But hey: it made everyone forget about the War going on outside the theatre, right?
TMDB3.0
Kolberg
1945 · 1h 50m · DE
During Napoleon's victorious campaign in Germany, the city of Kolberg gets isolated from the retreating Prussian forces. The population of Kolberg refuses to capitulate and organizes the resistance against the French army, which immediately submits the city to massive bombardments.
TMDB2.8
Spähtrupp Hallgarten
1941 · 1h 40m · DE
Two German soldiers in the Norwegian Campaign.
TMDB5.0
The Wedding Hotel
1944 · 1h 24m · DE
A group of artists and journalists enjoy a series of romantic entanglements in a country hotel. An author, Vera von Eichberg "of whom no photo exists," has mentioned the hotel in her work, boosting its notoriety. When another female guest arrives, everyone assumes she is the author, despite her repeated assertions to the contrary.
TMDB3.5
Liebesschule
1940 · 1h 30m · DE
A young woman works for two different men, both of whom fall in love with her. In the mornings she is secretary for a popular author and in the afternoons for a singer. Which of them will she settle for?
TMDB3.5
Alles Lüge
1949 · DE
Klementine Plamershof is a fun-loving young woman. She has long been “confined” to a girls’ boarding school, where she is studying music with growing reluctance.
TMDB2.7
Wild-Bird
1943 · 1h 27m · DE
The engineer Wolff Benningsen (Volker von Collande), a self-assured and über-obnoxious jingo jerk meets the young art student Vika von Demnitz (Leny Marenbach) while climbing in the Alps. One get's the idea that he would like to knock her over the head with a club and drag her to his cave but since this is out of fashion he decides to stalk her and annoy her heavy-handedly into a full submission. Understandingly, she instantly dislikes the lad and tries to shake him off. She succeeds a few times but then starts to suffer from some kind of Stockholm syndrome and falls for him. But that's not enough for him, being an infantile egoist he wants to tame the "wild bird" fully and break every last bit of her own will. It's all hard to believe if you haven't seen it yourself.
TMDB2.9
Dreimal Hochzeit
1941 · 1h 35m · DE
Prince Alexander loves the commoner Vera and defies his uncle the Tzar as well as his peers by arranging his wedding. But Vera leaves him because she does not want to be the cause of him spending the rest of his life as a social outcast.
Eines Tages
TMDB3.5
Eines Tages
1945 · 1h 27m · DE
No overview available
TMDB4.5
Comrades
1941 · 1h 42m · DE
King Frederick II and his leading advisors hesitate too long in the eyes of some officers, so Major von Schill decides to strike out on his own. He hoped that his brave move would be the catalyst for the great war of liberation. But von Schill's troops were soon defeated by a superior force of Dutch-Danish troops. The king takes a public stand against von Schill's actions and eleven of his officers are shot by summary execution on Napoleon's orders. However, one of them, Lieutenant Heinrich von Wedell, escapes death and is sentenced to forced labor for life. When Wedell's brother Karl, who opposed von Schill's unauthorized actions, learns of Heinrich's fate, he decides to help him in a risky way...
TMDB2.9
Oh, These Men
1941 · 1h 40m · DE
Eberhard gets into a brawl with Dr. Spindler not knowing that he just slapped his boss. To avoid the embarrassment Eberhard asks his friend Frank to substitute for him in the meeting with Dr. Spindler. Which accelerates the ensuing chaos.
Hallo, Fräulein!
TMDB4.0
Hallo, Fräulein!
1949 · 1h 40m · DE
Postwar Germany, May 1945. American city commander Tom Keller appoints engineer Walter Reinhardt as acting mayor of a small town in southern Germany. At the same time, he helps student Maria put on a musical show and, as an avid jazz fan, joins the tour as a conductor during his vacation.
TMDB4.5
The Blum Affair
1948 · 1h 49m · DE
Dr. Blum, a Jewish manufacturer, is falsely accused of a murder. Even when the real killer’s identity becomes evident, the state prosecutor refuses to accept Blum’s innocence.
Lambert fühlt sich bedroht
TMDB4.0
Lambert fühlt sich bedroht
1949 · AT
No overview available
Eine große Liebe
TMDB4.0
Eine große Liebe
1949 · 1h 30m · DE
Aristocratic Sabine marries her childhood love Klaus despite his coming from a lower class. When he does not return from World War I, she sinks into despair. They do find each other again until they've both grown old.
TMDB3.5
Die heimliche Gräfin
1942 · 1h 36m · DE
A comedy of confusion in aristocratic Vienna at the turn of the 19th into the 20th Century: The young Bohemian Countess Antschi Dorival trades places with her friend Martina, because she wants to become an actress and applies as such at the city theatre under a false name. And so, Martina attends the Vienna Opera Ball, posing as the countess. Because of their striking similarity to one another, Martina is confused with the impostor Sonja Lubomirska, who shortly before stole a necklace belonging to the wife of Archduke Johann Sylvester.
TMDB3.8
And If We Should Meet Again
1947 · 1h 31m · DE
Students raised under Nazi ideology witness the disintegration of the Third Reich and the realization of those who indoctrinated them that they were wrong.
TMDB3.1
Schwarz auf weiß
1943 · AT
Vienna, around 1900. The master baker Streussler’s most ardent wish is to see his daughter Nelly as a student at the university. With the help of his famous “streusel cake” he succeeds in luring all kinds of helpers for this endeavor into his house. But Nelly has entirely different plans: she is in love with the chimney sweep Heinz, the son of a neighbor, with whom Papa Streussler has been fighting for years. So it’s no wonder then, that the grump confectioner is doing everything he can to break up the relationship.
TMDB4.5
Der Sündenbock
1940 · DE
No overview available
TMDB3.9
Melody of a Great City
1943 · 1h 47m · DE
A young woman moves to Berlin to work as a press photographer.
TMDB3.7
Vienna Blood
1942 · 1h 43m · DE
Young Count Georg Wolkersheim is sent to the Congress of Vienna to represent the interests of his country, Reuss-Schleiz-Greiz. Tensions arise between the count, his wife Melanie, and their two chamberlains, and when the four attend a court ball, Melanie leaves Georg, assumes the identity of a famous actress, and attracts the affections of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria.
TMDB3.5
Wedding in Barenhof
1942 · 1h 38m · DE
Lothar von Pütz and Roswitha von Krakow fall in love and only then discover that their fathers are bitter enemies. When Lothar's father dies, a close friend of his father's, Baron Maximilian von Hanckel, takes the boy under his wing and tries to make peace between the families. He visits Roswitha's father, who begins to hope that he can marry his daughter to the older, but wealthy, baron, who is still a bachelor. When an argument breaks out between Lothar and Roswitha, she agrees to marry Maximilian. It is only at the pre-wedding party that Roswitha and Lothar have a real conversation. Maximilian overhears everything, releases Roswitha from her vows, and brings the two young people together.
TMDB3.4
Menschen in Gottes Hand
1948 · 1h 26m · DE
Film by Rolf Meyer.
Seinerzeit zu meiner Zeit
TMDB3.5
Seinerzeit zu meiner Zeit
1944 · 1h 30m · DE
Inge Peters has a guilty conscience. She told her mother, that she’d be going to the weekend house at the lake with her friend Barbara, but in reality, the horny girl is taking Peter with her. She’s afraid, that if mom finds out, she’s gonna lecture her again, starting with the slogan, “In your time as it once was in mine …” So Inge spends her nights in bed dreaming dreams of young ladies breaking moral taboos … just like she did and about which she now has to deceive her mother. The next morning, she runs to the shore of the lake to spend time with her Peter, only to see mom standing before the two young teens.
TMDB3.5
Wenn Männer verreisen
1940 · 1h 29m · DE
Ludwig Gruber, the director of a spa café, is a good man. Now and again, he makes little adventure-trips to Berlin to find business for his company. The women he is traveling with have an accident on the highway. Gruber is traveling incognito as “Mr. Rabbit” with Lotte, the leader of the group. Because of the accident, they’ll have to overnight together in a hotel. Since Mr. and Mrs. Rabbit are a “couple”, they’ll be getting a double-room, where they can … mmm … do what rabbits do. Since they both insist on climbing into bed with the lights out, it isn’t until the next morning that they notice they’ve been in the same bed the whole night. In the ensuing chaos, Grube loses his wedding ring, which is later sent to the address of Lotte’s mother, who now insists repeatedly, that he marry her daughter.
TMDB2.8
Stukas
1941 · 1h 41m · DE
This Nazi propaganda film details the exploits of a group of German Luftwaffe pilots flying Stukas--fighter-bombers--in the Battle of France in the early days of World War II.
TMDB3.3
Johann
1943 · 1h 15m · DE
Johann, the trusted valet of Count Zirndorf, has an affair with chambermaid Marie, but this liaison ends, as does the count's marriage. Years later trouble ensues when the count's daughter falls for young Hans who might be her brother.
TMDB3.5
Münchnerinnen
1949 · 1h 26m · DE
The love between a noble student and the daughter of a coffee house owner, set against clichéd images of Munich at the turn of the century.
About 1940s German Movies
The 1940s
1940s cinema is split by the war: propaganda and home-front melodrama, then the darker, more cynical film noir that followed. Italian neorealism emerged from the rubble at the decade's end.
German cinema
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.
In this list
- Most common genres
- Comedy, Drama, History
Common questions
- What are the best 1940s German movies?
- By popularity across Flickfolio and TMDB, the top picks right now are Romantische Brautfahrt, Geliebte Welt, and Brüderlein fein. The full ranked list of 40 sits above — open any movie for ratings, reviews, and streaming availability.
- How is this list ranked?
- 1940s German movies are ordered by overall popularity, which blends how often a title is viewed, searched, and logged. It updates as viewing habits shift, so the list reflects what people are actually watching rather than a fixed critical canon.
- Where can I watch these movies?
- Every movie page lists current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region, alongside community ratings and reviews from Flickfolio members.