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


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.


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


The Pianist
2002 · 2h 30m · FR
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.


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.


Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
2006 · 2h 27m · DE
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 Lives of Others
2006 · 2h 17m · DE
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.


Paris, Texas
1984 · 2h 25m · UK
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 · FR
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.


People Among Us
1926 · 2h 3m · DE
Gerhard Lamprecht sketches a cross-section of Germany's new post-war society, with its winners, social climbers, and losers, represented by the social microcosm of an apartment building. The gossip-mad Frau Mierig from the rear building gives the newly-arrived Frau Kaminski, the janitor's wife, a lively initiation into the tenants and their peculiarities.


Das Boot
1981 · 2h 30m · DE
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.


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.


Playing with Love
1977 · 1h 34m · IT
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.


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.


Never Look Away
2018 · 3h 8m · DE
German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.


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.
Möblierte Zimmer
Möblierte Zimmer
1929 · 1h 36m · DE
No overview available


Metropolis
1927 · 2h 28m · DE
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.


Carnage
2011 · 1h 20m · FR
Two pairs of parents hold a cordial meeting after their sons are involved in a fight, though as their time together progresses, increasingly childish behavior throws the discussion into chaos.


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.


Downfall
2004 · 2h 35m · AT
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.
Engel im Fegefeuer
Engel im Fegefeuer
1965 · 1h 17m · DE
The Ruhr area in November of 1918. 13-year old Achim Wolters and his friends get their hands on some potatoes on the market. They want to surprise Achim′s father, who works on a mine sweeper boat, with a decent meal. But Achim′s father does not show up – an informer at the train station has betrayed him for his left-wing beliefs and has turned him over to the police. The priest tells Achim the sad news and advises him to pray for the release of his father. But when carpenter Stelzebein stresses that everybody has to take actions for himself, the devout boy at first does not believe in Stelzebein′s words. But then Achim witnesses in the prison how brutally the imperial police treat his father and the other inmates. Together with his loyal friends, Achim takes Stelzebein′s side. When the revolution starts, they stand together on the barricades.


The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
2009 · 2h 32m · DK
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


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.


Heidi
2015 · 1h 51m · DE
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.


Song
1928 · 1h 42m · DE
After committing a murder for his lover, Gloria, the famous painter Jack is forced to go underground. In the harbor district, he saves the poor Malaysian girl Song in front of two intrusive sailors. She loves him for it, and together Song and Jack appear in the tingle dungeon of the port, he as a knife artist, she as a dancer.


The Tin Drum
1979 · 2h 42m · FR
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.


Geliebte Welt
1942 · DE
No overview available


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.


Der Seelenbräu
1950 · 1h 40m · AT
In Alt-Köstendorf in the Salzburg region, the dean, known as Seelenbräu, and the brewer Hochleithner, known in the village as Leibesbräu, are fighting for supremacy. As their nicknames suggest, Leibesbräu is primarily concerned with the physical well-being of the villagers, while Seelenbräu cares deeply about the faith of his congregation. This leads to repeated clashes between the two men, who could perhaps be described as stubborn. When Hochleitner's niece Clementine leaves the convent and wants to stay at home, a new dispute flares up between Seelenbräu and Leibesbräu.


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.


Mein Leopold
1955 · DE
In unconditional fatherly love, an old shoemaker clings to his son, a spoiled good-for-nothing. After the Filius has ruined the respected shoe shop, he gets further and further down the wrong path without opening his father's eyes.


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.


The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
1920 · 1h 17m · DE
Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.


Run Lola Run
1998 · 1h 20m · DE
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.


Luther
2003 · 2h 3m · DE
During the early 16th century, idealistic German monk Martin Luther, disgusted by the materialism in the church, begins the dialogue that will lead to the Protestant Reformation.


Benno Stehkragen
1927 · DE
No overview available


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


Elizabeth: The Golden Age
2007 · 1h 54m · FR
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.


Youth
1922 · DE
No overview available


Wings of Desire
1987 · 2h 8m · DE
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.