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


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.


The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
2013 · 2h 10m · CA
In New York City, Clary Fray, a seemingly ordinary teenager, learns that she is descended from a line of Shadowhunters — half-angel warriors who protect humanity from evil forces. After her mother disappears, Clary joins forces with a group of Shadowhunters and enters Downworld, an alternate realm filled with demons, vampires, and a host of other creatures. Clary and her companions must find and protect an ancient cup that holds the key to her mother's future.


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


The Girl Who Played with Fire
2009 · 2h 9m · DK
Mikael Blomkvist, publisher of Millennium magazine, has made his living exposing the crooked and corrupt practices of establishment Swedish figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with a meticulously researched thesis about sex trafficking in Sweden and those in high office who abuse underage girls, Blomkvist immediately throws himself into the investigation.


The Ghost Writer
2010 · 2h 8m · FR
A writer stumbles upon a long-hidden secret when he agrees to help former British Prime Minister Adam Lang complete his memoirs on a remote island after the politician's assistant drowns in a mysterious accident.


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).


The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
2009 · 2h 27m · DK
After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in a hospital and is set to face trial for attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must prove her innocence. In doing this she plays against powerful enemies and her own past.


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.


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.


Exit Plan
2019 · 1h 30m · BE
Insurance broker Max's life is about one thing - keeping his walnut brain tumour in check. He eats properly, exercises and lives properly, but all of this self-consciousness makes him more and more depressed. When he realises that his beloved wife plans to leave him, he decides to take his own life.


The Physician II
2025 · 2h 22m · DE
1050 AD: Robert Cole returns to England to bring the medical light of the Orient to his countrymen. But he fails because of the intrigues of the established London doctors, who feel threatened by the new knowledge. And it is not only the human body that is full of seemingly impenetrable secrets, the soul also holds its own mysteries.


Pride and Glory
2008 · 2h 10m · US
A saga centered on the Tierneys, a multi-generational family of New York City Police officers. The family's moral codes are tested when Ray Tierney investigates a case that reveals an incendiary police corruption scandal involving his own brother-in-law. For Ray, the truth is revelatory, a Pandora's Box that threatens to upend not only the Tierney legacy but the entire NYPD.
Das Spinnennetz
Das Spinnennetz
1956 · DE
No overview available


Creep
2004 · 1h 25m · DE
Trapped in a London subway station, a woman who's being pursued by a potential attacker heads into the unknown labyrinth of tunnels beneath the city's streets


The White Ribbon
2009 · 2h 24m · IT
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.


Night Train to Lisbon
2013 · 1h 51m · DE
Raimund Gregorius, having saved a beautiful Portuguese woman from leaping to her death, stumbles upon a mesmerizing book by a Portuguese author, which compels him to suddenly abandon the boring life he has led for years and to embark on an enthralling adventure. In search of the author, Gregorius acts as detective, pulling together pieces of a puzzle that involves political and emotional intrigue and the highest possible stakes. His voyage is one that transcends time and space, delving into the realms of history, medicine and love, all in search of true meaning to his life.


Momo
1986 · 1h 41m · 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.


Schloß Vogelöd
1936 · DE
Remake of the silent film of 1921: The lord of a castle disappears after the return of two feuding brothers from a noble family. Suspicion falls on the recently returned brothers.


Fedora
1978 · 1h 49m · FR
Down-on-his-luck Hollywood producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler attempts to lure Fedora, a famous but reclusive film actress, out of retirement, only to discover the horrifying truth behind her success.


The World Machine
1981 · 1h 35m · AT
After the passing of her husband, the commissioned painter Anneliese Psiko decides to travel across the country. In the Austrian province of Styria, she discovers a strange work of art entitled "Weltmaschine" (World Machine). From now on, it will change her life significantly.


Narciso
2026 · 1h 41m · PY
Paraguay, 1958. The charismatic Narciso returns from Buenos Aires with rock ’n’ roll in his veins. Under the suffocating military regime, his radio show becomes a music sensation and a symbol of freedom.


Willa
2015 · 15m · DE
A railway station in the middle of nowhere. David is looking for his girlfriend: Willa. They were on their way to their own wedding, when an accident made them stuck at a small railway station. Now Willa is missing and none of the other fellow passengers know where she is. Although the next train is so supposed to come any minute, David leaves the railway station to search for Willa... An adaptation of Stephen King's short story Willa.
Dr. Wislizenus
Dr. Wislizenus
1924 · 1h 5m · DE
Deep in the forest lives the bitter Dr. Wislizenus, whose childhood sweetheart Maria committed suicide ten years ago. The visit of a childhood friend, he who wrote a poem about Mary, triggers a tragedy.


New York November
2011 · 1h 40m · AT
A man arrives at JFK-Airport in New York on a cold November morning. In the airport bathroom he cuts his hair and changes his clothes. He owns a small and odd looking linen bound book. The printed pages are covered in notes, written in a woman's pale handwriting. He has carried this book for many years. He had no idea that it will bring his entire past into question.


Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds
2020 · 1h 38m · DE
This remarkable journey across our planet and universe explores how meteorites, shooting stars, and deep impacts have awoken our wonder about other realms—and make us rethink our destinies.


The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
1933 · 2h 2m · DE
After a detective is assaulted by thugs and placed in an asylum run by Professor Baum, he observes the professor's preoccupation with another patient, the criminal genius Dr. Mabuse the hypnotist. When Mabuse's notes are found to be connected with a rash of recent crimes, Commissioner Lohmann must determine how Mabuse is communicating with the criminals, despite conflicting reports on the doctor's whereabouts, and capture him for good.


Dead Past
2010 · DE
David's wife is murdered in their vacation home in the woods. David tries to solve her murder and finds out that her killer was unable to finish the job back then and will therefore probably return to the scene of the crime at some point. He decides to stay in the vacation home over the winter and wait for the killer to take revenge! But the long winter nights and the never-ending loneliness are not his only problem... The house harbors a dark secret!


In the Light of the Night
2022 · 1h 44m · DE
A young woman attempting to restore an abandoned mill in a remote area soon discovers the place harbors a dangerous creature.


No Good Deed
2002 · 1h 37m · US
While doing a friend a favor and searching for a runaway teenager, a police detective stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery.


Emerald Green
2016 · 1h 53m · DE
Emerald Green is the stunning conclusion to Kerstin Gier's Ruby Red Trilogy, picking up where Sapphire Blue left off, reaching new heights of intrigue and romance as Gwen finally uncovers the secrets of the time-traveling society and learns her fate.


Ghost Island
2022 · 1h 20m · DE
A young woman is trapped on an obscure Island. While searching for a way out she stumbles across mysterious characters which seem to be stuck there for an eternity.


Eerie Tales
1919 · 1h 41m · DE
A demon, a reaper, and the ghost of a prostitute read gothic short stories and act them out.


Bright Night
2015 · 1h 26m · DE
A drama with a supernatural edge, this genre-crossing gem finds two couples visiting a home from their past, and sexual tension that brings out the worst in each other. Long-buried grudges resurface and it seems unlikely the couples will return intact. Faced with an outcome that will upset their delicate balance of happiness, the world offers them a bizarre opportunity to correct it.
Der Todfeind
Der Todfeind
1920 · DE
A wealthy man is found bludgeoned to death near a railway. The question is, who killed him and why?


The Devil's Bath
2024 · 2h 1m · AT
In 1750 Austria, a deeply religious woman named Agnes has just married her beloved, but her mind and heart soon grow heavy as her life becomes a long list of chores and expectations. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts, until the possibility of committing a shocking act of violence seems like the only way out of her inner prison.


A Gentle Creature
2017 · 2h 23m · DE
A woman lives in a small village in Russia. One day she receives the parcel she sent to her husband, serving a sentence in prison. Confused and angered, she sets out to find why her package was returned to sender.


Vampyr
1932 · 1h 14m · DE
Allan Gray, a young man fascinated by the supernatural, goes to a small village where he feels a sinister force descending upon him. There, Allan meets an old man who asks him to protect his two daughters, for one of them has been bitten by a vampire.


Cidade; Campo
2024 · 2h · BR
Two tales of migration. In the first, after a tailings dam disaster floods her hometown, rural worker Joana (55) moves to São Paulo to find her sister Tania, who lives with her grandson Jaime. Joana enters the universe of insecurity, replying to an application for house cleaning. She bonds with her colleagues, and their struggle for better conditions gives Joana’s life a new meaning. Her relationship with young Jaime brings back old memories. In the second part, after the death of her estranged father, Flavia (32) moves to her farm with her wife Mara. The couple suffer a shock of reality when facing the harshness of rural life. The contact with the abandoned house reveals to Flavia unknown aspects of her father. She begins to suspect that there is something supernatural in the woods.


The People vs. Fritz Bauer
2015 · 1h 45m · DE
It is the late 1950s. Flourishing under the economic miracle, Germany grows increasingly apathetic about confronting the horrors of its recent past. Nevertheless, Fritz Bauer doggedly devotes his energies to bringing the Third Reich to justice. One day Bauer receives a letter from Argentina, written by a man who is certain that his daughter is dating the son of Adolph Eichmann. Excited by the promising lead, and mistrustful of a corrupt judiciary system where Nazis still lurk, Bauer journeys to Jerusalem to seek alliance with Mossad, the Israeli secret service. To do so is treason — yet committing treason is the only way Bauer can serve his country.


Melancholie der Engel
2009 · 2h 44m · DE
Upon learning that his days are numbered, a man and an old friend return to an old house that connects them by a dark secret. Along with three women and a mysterious old man, the group journeys into a horrifying abyss of debauchery and moral mayhem, leading to a fatal turn of events, during which the darkest human depths are revealed.
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.
Mystery films are structured around withheld information, trusting the audience to work alongside the investigator. The genre ranges from cozy whodunits to bleak, unresolved character studies.