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


Kingdom of Heaven
2005 · 2h 24m
country: United States
After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.


The Uprising
2026 · 2h 8m
country: Germany
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.


The Pianist
2002 · 2h 30m
country: France
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.


Drifter
2023 · 1h 19m
country: Germany
Moritz follows a boyfriend to Berlin and is soon abandoned by him. Alone in the big city, he embarks on a journey through a wide range of queer experience. Only through a new circle of queer friends does he develop his own ideas of sexuality and masculinity, leading him to a clearer self-identity.


Regretting You
2025 · 1h 56m
country: United States
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.


All Quiet on the Western Front
2022 · 2h 27m
country: Germany
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.


Elizabeth: The Golden Age
2007 · 1h 54m
country: France
When Queen Elizabeth's reign is threatened by ruthless familial betrayal and Spain's invading army, she and her shrewd adviser must act to safeguard the lives of her people.


Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
2006 · 2h 27m
country: Germany
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born in the stench of 18th century Paris, develops a superior olfactory sense, which he uses to create the world's finest perfumes. However, his work takes a dark turn as he tries to preserve scents in the search for the ultimate perfume.


The Tank
2025 · 1h 57m
country: Germany
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.


Hotel Desire
2011 · 38m
country: Germany
Antonia is a single mother who works as a hotel maid in Berlin. A normal hot summer day takes a dramatic turn when she crosses paths with a particular guest of the hotel, famous blind portrait painter Julius Pass.


She Devils of the SS
1973 · 1h 35m
country: Switzerland
In the last days of WW2, women are volunteering from all over Germany to serve in the front lines by having sex with the brave Nazi soldiers. But when they start having sex with each other, things get complicated. Especially with the increasing danger from the revengeful Soviet army!


Paris, Texas
1984 · 2h 25m
country: United Kingdom
A man wanders out of the desert not knowing who he is. His brother finds him, and helps to pull his memory back of the life he led before he walked out on his family and disappeared four years earlier.


The Name of the Rose
1986 · 2h 10m
country: France
14th-century Franciscan monk William of Baskerville and his young novice arrive at a conference to find that several monks have been murdered under mysterious circumstances. To solve the crimes, William must rise up against the Church's authority and fight the shadowy conspiracy of monastery monks using only his intelligence; which is considerable.


Grand Jete
2022 · 1h 45m
country: Germany
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.


Downfall
2004 · 2h 35m
country: Austria
In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2009 · 2h 32m
country: Denmark
Swedish thriller based on Stieg Larsson's novel about a male journalist and a young female hacker. In the opening of the movie, Mikael Blomkvist, a middle-aged publisher for the magazine Millennium, loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Nevertheless, he is hired by Henrik Vanger in order to solve a cold case, the disappearance of Vanger's niece


The Lives of Others
2006 · 2h 17m
country: Germany
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.


Freedom Writers
2007 · 2h 3m
country: Germany
A young teacher inspires her class of at-risk students to learn tolerance, apply themselves, and pursue education beyond high school.


Das Boot
1981 · 2h 30m
country: Germany
A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.


Ballad of a Small Player
2025 · 1h 41m
country: Germany
Amid the glittering casinos of Macau, a gambler running from his past—and his debts—becomes fascinated by an enigmatic woman at the baccarat table.


The Physician
2013 · 2h 35m
country: Germany
England, 1021: Born in a miserable mining town, Robert Cole swears to become a physician and vanquish disease and death. His harsh path of many years, a quest for knowledge besieged by countless challenges and sacrifices, leads him to the remote Isfahan, in Persia, where he meets Ibn Sina, the greatest healer of his time.


Run Lola Run
1998 · 1h 20m
country: Germany
Lola receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni. He lost 100,000 DM in a subway train that belongs to a very bad guy. She has 20 minutes to raise this amount and meet Manni. Otherwise, he will rob a store to get the money. Three different alternatives may happen depending on some minor event along Lola's run.


23 000 Lives
2026 · 1h 52m
country: Germany
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.


3096 Days
2013 · 1h 51m
country: Germany
A young Austrian girl is kidnapped and held in captivity for eight years. Based on the real-life case of Natascha Kampusch.


Pompeii
2014 · 1h 45m
country: Germany
In 79 A.D., Milo, a slave turned gladiator, finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him.


Playing with Love
1977 · 1h 34m
country: Italy
Laura and Fabrizio have been meeting every summer in the forest by her parent's summer home. Fabrizio is a solitary boy with only his dog for company; Laura a sweet but unconfident child. This summer new aspects enter into their story as both are growing up. Laura is falling in love with Fabrizio, while he displays a new sexual awareness of her masked by his malice. Things develop further when they meet Sylvia who, unlike the innocent Laura, is confident and assertive. Fabrizio develops a fascination with her, eventually bribing Laura to fetch her to the forest to join them in play.


Mothering Sunday
2021 · 1h 44m
country: Germany
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.


Hen
2026 · 1h 36m
country: Germany
Escaping from a chicken farm, a hen finds refuge in the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. There, she discovers love, confronts the pecking order, and fights to protect her eggs from a greedy owner. Her droll yet touching quest for motherhood mirrors the messy compromises and silent struggles of human lives.


Silent Friend
2026 · 2h 27m
country: France
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.


Heidi
2015 · 1h 51m
country: Germany
Heidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.


Sixty Minutes
2024 · 1h 29m
country: Germany
Desperate to keep custody of his daughter, a mixed martial arts fighter abandons a big match and races across Berlin to attend her birthday party.


Colonia
2016 · 1h 46m
country: Germany
A young woman's desperate search for her abducted boyfriend draws her into the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a sect nobody ever escaped from.


The White Ribbon
2009 · 2h 24m
country: Italy
An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.


Metropolis
1927 · 2h 28m
country: Germany
In a futuristic city sharply divided between the rich and the poor, the son of the city's mastermind meets a prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.


Rose
2026 · 1h 34m
country: Austria
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 Tin Drum
1979 · 2h 42m
country: France
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.


Filth
2013 · 1h 37m
country: Belgium
A bigoted junkie cop suffering from borderline personality disorder and drug addiction manipulates and hallucinates his way in a bid to secure promotion.


The Wave
2008 · 1h 47m
country: Germany
A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.


The Bookshop
2017 · 1h 50m
country: Germany
Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield.


Wings of Desire
1987 · 2h 8m
country: Germany
Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds — with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk — that it might be possible for him to take human form.
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.
Drama is cinema's widest category and its default setting — character, conflict, and consequence without genre machinery. It's where most awards conversation lives, and where directors go when the story is the effect.