The 40 most popular 2020s german movies, ranked. Click any film for ratings, reviews, trailers, and where to watch.


Drive - The Pretenders
2026 · 1h 43m · DE
A young mechanic fakes an engagement with racing's most scandalous star — officially for his reputation, secretly for her own shot behind the wheel. But soon the lie threatens to destroy everything — including what's already become so much more than just a deal.


The Birthday Gift
2026 · 1h 26m · DE
Single mother Marlene Frischmann organizes a birthday party for her son Theo at her brother's chic country villa, which quickly spirals into family drama, world-view quarrels, and chaos.


The Uprising
2026 · 2h 8m · DE
As war and plague devastate 14th-century England, a humble peasant ignites a rebellion, uniting an army of commoners to defy the King’s might in a desperate fight for justice and survival.


Monster Mia
2026 · 1h 22m · AT
12-year-old Mia and her scruffy pet rat Quentin are sent to the mysterious Rotwood Academy after one too many problems at school. The new school gives her the creeps, and Mia needs to figure a way out before the students realize she isn't a monster like them! But the vice principal Van Vlad hosts a particular dislike for humans, and Mia is scared he has seen through her act...


All Quiet on the Western Front
2022 · 2h 27m · DE
Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.


Tom Clancy's Without Remorse
2021 · 1h 50m · US
An elite Navy SEAL uncovers an international conspiracy while seeking justice for the murder of his pregnant wife.


Grand Jete
2022 · 1h 45m · DE
Dance teacher and mother Nadja left her son Mario with her own mother when he was little. Now she has reappeared on his doorstep, seeking a closeness that knows fewer and fewer boundaries. An uncompromising film about family relationships.


Regretting You
2025 · 1h 56m · US
Morgan Grant and her daughter Clara explore what's left behind after a devastating accident reveals a shocking betrayal and forces them to confront family secrets, redefine love, and rediscover each other.


The Tank
2025 · 1h 57m · DE
A German Tiger tank crew is sent on a dangerous mission to rescue the missing officer Paul von Hardenburg from a top-secret bunker behind enemy lines. As they make their way through the lethal no-man's land, they must confront not only the enemy, but also their own fears and inner demons. Fueled by the Wehrmacht's methamphetamine, their mission increasingly becomes a journey into the heart of darkness.


Prison
2025 · 2h 20m · DE
The seemingly innocent Alexander Rothstein ends up in jail for drug trafficking. In fact, he bears the responsibility of providing for his newly pregnant girlfriend Julia and their future child. To make matters worse, he ends up sharing a cell with the dangerous Russian Viktor and the unstable Arab Khalil. To fulfill his duties as a father and escape the dangers of prison, Alex needs money - a lot of money. His desperation drives him into the arms of the Kurdish gangster boss Mazlum, also known as the Dutchman, and back to his friend from drug therapy, Cem. Together, they weave the threads of an organization that casts its nets even beyond the prison walls, but at the height of euphoria, Alex suddenly finds himself caught in it. He is left with only two options: Succumb to the conspiracy of intrigue and betrayal or become a monster himself.


In the Lost Lands
2025 · 1h 41m · DE
A queen sends the powerful and feared sorceress Gray Alys to the ghostly wilderness of the Lost Lands in search of a magical power, where she and her guide, the drifter Boyce, must outwit and outfight both man and demon.


Welcome to Smelliville
2021 · 1h 25m · BE
The Oggly family arrive at the municipal rubbish dump of Smelliville and must look for a new home, but they never feel really welcome anywhere. They stink and are for most humans just a tad too oggly. When Firebottom, the family dragon, crash-lands on the run-down rubbish tip of the small town of Smelliville, the Ogglies at once feel at home. And it's here they want to stay.


Persian Lessons
2020 · 2h 7m · RU
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.


Momo
2025 · 1h 33m · DE
Momo is a young orphan girl who lives in the ruins of an old Roman amphitheater and becomes friends with everybody in the neighborhood. But when a powerful international corporation starts stealing everybody’s time, nobody has any time left for her, let alone their friends or families. Momo, together with Master Hora, the custodian of time, are the only ones who can go up against the time thieves before all is lost forever.


23 000 Lives
2026 · 1h 52m · DE
A group of young people sets sail for the Mediterranean to save the lives of refugees — a mission that puts their ideas of law and justice to the test.


Fall for Me
2025 · 1h 43m · DE
Lilli is suspicious of her sister's new fiance, but when an attractive stranger enters her life, she's suddenly distracted by the thralls of desire.


Berlusconis Aufstieg
2024 · DE
From his beginnings in real estate to his rise to power, this is the story of Silvio Berlusconi's two decades of ascension, during which he radically transformed Italy's media landscape—and soon its political landscape as well. A fascinating portrait of an opportunistic entrepreneur with extraordinary charisma.


The Amazing Maurice
2022 · 1h 33m · BE
Maurice is a streetwise ginger cat who comes up with a money-making scam by befriending a group of self-taught talking rats. When Maurice and the rodents meet a bookworm called Malicia, their little con soon goes down the drain.


Gentle Monster
2026 · 1h 54m · AT
After relocating with her family to the countryside, a renowned pianist uncovers a life-shattering truth that forces her to confront the complexities of love, trust, and deception.


Little Berlin
2020 · 13m · DE
When the Iron Curtain cuts his tiny German village in half, Peter the bull gets separated from his 36 cows. Based on a true story narrated by Christoph Waltz.


Silent Friend
2026 · 2h 27m · FR
In the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany stands a majestic ginkgo tree. This silent witness has observed over a century the quiet rhythms of transformation across three human lives. At three distinct moments across the 20th and 21st centuries, these people — each carrying their own questions and inner struggles — inevitably find themselves drawn into the presence of this tree, full of mystery and meaning.


Guns Akimbo
2020 · 1h 38m · BE
An ordinary guy suddenly finds himself forced to fight a gladiator-like battle for a dark website that streams the violence for viewers. In order to survive and rescue his kidnapped ex-girlfriend, he must battle Nix, a heavily armed and much more experienced fighter.


The Holy Grill
2026 · DE
At a tennis club in rural Germany, preparations for the summer party are led by Heribert. When a separate grill is suggested for Erol, the club's only Muslim member, tensions flare. What begins as a simple discussion quickly turns into a debate about societal and personal conflicts, threatening to tear the club apart.


Achilles Returns
2026 · 50m · FR
After many years, with help of Thetis and negotiations between Zeus and Hades, the Greek hero Achilles is released from the Underworld into the modern world.


Chess Story
2021 · 1h 50m · AT
1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.


Sound of Falling
2025 · 2h 28m · DE
Four adolescent girls each spend their youth in the same farmhouse over the last century. Though separated by decades, resonances between their lives emerge: their desires and distress, secrets and truths, encounters with another’s gaze and defiant gaze in return.


Eat Pray Bark
2026 · 1h 31m · DE
Five eccentric dog owners seek help in dealing with their four-legged friends. Their last hope: an intensive course with the charismatic and legendary dog trainer Nodon in the Tyrolean mountains.


Blood Red Sky
2021 · 2h 3m · DE
A woman with a mysterious illness is forced into action when a group of terrorists attempt to hijack a transatlantic overnight flight. In order to protect her son she will have to reveal a dark secret, and unleash the inner monster she has fought to hide.


Shattered
2022 · 1h 32m · DE
Chris, a wealthy divorcee, lives in a high-tech house of his own design in Montana. His life changes when he meets Sky, a mysterious young woman who draws him out of his shell and moves in after Chris is injured.


My Best Friend, His Girlfriend and Me
2026 · 1h 38m · DE
Olli and Matze are best friends living, working and planning to travel the world together — until Matze's romance with Rebecca turns it all upside down.


Schumacher ’94 – The Birth of a Legend
2026 · 1h 45m · DE
Michael Schumacher's first World Championship win roars to life through personal interviews and archival footage of the legendary 1994 Formula 1 season.


Firebird
2021 · 1h 47m · EE
At the height of the Cold War, a troubled soldier forms a forbidden love triangle with a daring fighter pilot and his female comrade amid the dangerous surroundings of a Soviet Air Force Base.


The Blood Countess
2026 · 1h 59m · AT
The Blood Countess and her maid embark on a quest for the red elixir of life and a book that threatens the vampire realm. Hot on their heels are a police inspector, two vampirologists, a vegetarian nephew and his therapist.


Fabula
2025 · 2h 5m · NL
Small-town criminal Jos (55) has, to his great frustration, been completely sidelined. His daughter disrespects him, his wife doesn't trust him, and his friends laugh at him openly. As he scrambles to fix a drug deal that went catastrophically wrong, he desperately searches for an answer to the question: Who or what is punishing me!?


Brick
2025 · 1h 39m · DE
When a mysterious brick wall encloses their apartment building overnight, Tim and Olivia must unite with their wary neighbors to get out alive.


Grand Prix of Europe
2025 · 1h 38m · DE
Edda, a young mouse and the daughter of fairground operator Erwin, dreams of becoming a race car driver. Ahead of the 50th anniversary of the European Grand Prix, Edda gets the opportunity to meet her idol, racing star Ed, and to help her father save his failing business. But to do so, she'll have to get behind the wheel herself.


Late Shift
2025 · 1h 32m · CH
Dedicated nurse Floria navigates the relentless pace of her hospital’s understaffed surgical ward with humanity and warmth. As her overnight shift intensifies, she is pushed to the brink in a race against time.


Rose
2026 · 1h 34m · AT
In the early 17th century, a soldier arrives at an isolated Protestant village in Germany claiming to be the heir to an abandoned farmstead. Even though he proves to be a good man, the villagers’ suspicions about his identity grow and they force a reckoning.


The Calendar Killer
2024 · 1h 33m · DE
Klara is going to die today unless she kills her husband instead. The Calendar Killer has given her that impossible choice. When Jules starts his night shift at a telephone safety helpline for lonely women on their way home, Klara's call reaches him. He soon becomes her last hope for survival and races against time to save her.


Mothering Sunday
2021 · 1h 44m · DE
On a warm spring day in 1924, house maid and foundling Jane Fairchild finds herself alone on Mother's Day. Her employers, Mr. and Mrs. Niven, are out and she has the rare chance to spend quality time with her secret lover. Paul is the boy from the manor house nearby, Jane's long-term love despite the fact that he's engaged to be married to another woman, a childhood friend and daughter of his parents' friends. But events that neither can foresee will change the course of Jane's life forever.
The 2020s opened with theatrical exhibition in crisis and streaming absorbing much of the mid-budget film. What's emerged is a split market: event spectacle in cinemas, and almost everything else finding its audience at home.
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.