Best German crime series
A curated collection of popular crime series from Germany.
Divided We Stand (2022)
Divided We Stand (2022)
ZERV" tells of the first years after the fall of the Wall, the breaks in life courses, of completely different biographies and of the successful coming together in the common fight against crime, which knows no East and West. ZERV stands for the Central Investigation Office for Government and Association Crime, founded in Berlin in 1991 by decision of the federal government.
Löwengrube (1989)
Löwengrube (1989)
"Löwengrube – Die Grandauers und ihre Zeit" is a German television series first aired between 1989 and 1992, created by Willy Purucker and directed by Rainer Wolffhardt. It is set in Munich and follows the lives of Ludwig Grandauer and his son Karl, both policemen, covering the years from 1897 to 1954. The TV show is based on Purucker's radio play series Die Grandauers und ihre Zeit (‘The Grandauers and their time’). The series’ main title "Löwengrube", meaning ‘Lions’ Den’, refers to the address of the Munich Police Headquarters inaugurated in 1913.
Westwall (2021)
Westwall (2021)
When Julia, a young trainee police officer, meets the secretive stranger Nick, she finds herself falling for him almost instantly. But after their first night together, she is shocked to see that Nick has a huge swastika tattoo on his back. Despite all the advice to forget the guy immediately, she decides to investigate the right-wing extremist scene for herself. She follows a trail deep into the forests of the Eifel to the abandoned bunkers of Hitler’s Siegfried Line. In this old World War II defense facility, the young police officer finds the hideout of a terrorist with whom she has more in common than she ever could have imagined.
West of Liberty (2019)
West of Liberty (2019)
Based on the novel by Thomas Engström, a former Stasi double agent is asked by his old CIA contact to work one more case.
Allmen (2017)
Allmen (2017)
Dandified Allmen needs money and sells some valuable Gallé glass pieces to a dealer. After the dealer gets killed and someone also wants to kill him, Allmen and his butler try to find out what is going on.
Die Spezialisten - Im Namen der Opfer (2016)
Die Spezialisten - Im Namen der Opfer (2016)
A special team of the LKA Berlin rolls up unresolved criminal cases from the past.
Behind Bars: The World's Toughest Prisons (2016)
Behind Bars: The World's Toughest Prisons (2016)
These are some of the toughest prisons in the world. Prisons so tough, even gang bosses and killers learn the meaning of fear. Across four continents, six different prisons, the series takes us beyond the gates, walls, barred windows and cells into an unknown world, a world we know exists, but a world nobody wants to think about.
Dear Child (2023)
Babylon Berlin (2017)
Babylon Berlin (2017)
Beneath the decadence of 1929 Berlin, lies an underworld city of sin. Police investigator Gereon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to the epicenter of political and social changes in the Golden Twenties.
Vienna Blood (2019)
Vienna Blood (2019)
Max Liebermann, a student of Sigmund Freud, helps Detective Rheinhardt in the investigation of a series of disturbing murders around the grand cafes and opera houses of 1900s Vienna.
Sleeping Dog (2023)
Zen (2011)
Zen (2011)
Zen is a British television mini series produced by Left Bank Pictures for the BBC, co-produced with WGBH Boston for its Masterpiece anthology series, Mediaset and ZDF. It stars Rufus Sewell and Caterina Murino and is based on the Aurelio Zen detective novels by Michael Dibdin. The series was filmed on location in Italy, but the dialogue is in English. The series, which comprises three 90-minute films, was broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sunday evenings from 2 January 2011 on BBC One. The three films were based on the books Vendetta, Cabal and Ratking.
Blackout: Tomorrow Is Too Late (2021)
Blackout: Tomorrow Is Too Late (2021)
A chain reaction in the European power grid plunges the continent into darkness. Hacker Pierre Manzano realizes that a code he wrote is to blame. In Germany Frauke Michelsen heads the country’s crisis response team. Disaster looms.
Dark Woods (2020)
Dark Woods (2020)
In the summer of 1989, the sister of Hamburg's LKA chief Thomas Bethge disappears without a trace. For almost three decades, he investigates the mysterious criminal case, before he gets on the trail of a serial killer.
Marnow Murders (2021)
Marnow Murders (2021)
The city of Schwerin is melting – it is the hottest summer in years. Detectives Lona Mendt and Frank Elling are on the trail of a serial murderer, who seems to choose his victims randomly. But nothing is as it seems. The detectives have apparently made some powerful enemies that will do everything in their power to keep the truth from coming to light. The further along with their investigation Frank Elling, a devoted husband and father, and the aloof Lona Mendt get, the bigger the obstacles become.
Oderbruch (2024)
Oderbruch (2024)
The sinister discovery of numerous murder victims shocks the Oderbruch region. The serial murder case brings Detective Roland Voit to his hometown to work with Polish police officer Stanislaw Zajak. Voit’s former colleague and childhood sweetheart, Maggie Kring, is also called in to join the police investigation when her family comes under immediate suspicion. In their investigation, Maggie and Voit delve deep into their own past to finally uncover the true circumstances of the death of Maggie’s brother and the sinister truth of this case, which lies beyond human imagination.
The Witnesses (2021)
The Witnesses (2021)
When 10 year old girl is kidnapped from the natural history museum, the police questions eight key witnesses to uncover the truth and find the child before it's too late.
The Typist (2018)
The Typist (2018)
Freya Becker is a typist with the homicide division of the Berlin police. Freya’s daughter, Marie, disappeared 11 years ago without a trace, and Freya is determined to uncover the truth, whatever the cost.
Unwanted (2023)
Unwanted (2023)
A cruise ship rescues 28 refugees from the Mediterranean. When the captain is ordered to head for Libya, the situation escalates.
The Seed (2023)
The Seed (2023)
The German inspector Max Grosz sets off with the Norwegian policewoman Thea Koren to Spitsbergen in search of his missing nephew. In the process, they delve deeper and deeper into a web of intrigue and political interests, because the disappearance is apparently connected to the controversial takeover of an agricultural company.
Waldgericht - Ein Schwarzwaldkrimi (2021)
Waldgericht - Ein Schwarzwaldkrimi (2021)
The corpse of a fruit farmer is found in a meadow orchard. It was buried upside down, draped like a scarecrow. The spectacular staging of the murder leads Commissioner Maris Bächle and her colleague Konrad Diener to suspect a personal motive. While the black asylum seeker is quickly suspected as a perpetrator, the Freudenstadt inhabitants speculate behind closed doors about the involvement of earth spirits - of course, just for fun. However, when Konrad Diener's introverted 14-year-old son disappears without a trace in the forest during a school trip and reappears completely changed, but refuses to give any information about his whereabouts, Maris remembers how she was found in the forest as an 8-year-old. She had mysteriously survived there. With the help of the city archivist, the two investigators come across an old legend about forest spirits and an old place of execution in the middle of the forest. The forest court once met in this mystical place. Apparently it is active again.
Nordic Murders (2014)
Nordic Murders (2014)
The mother and daughter team, Karin Lossow, former district attorney and Detective Chief Superintendent Julia Thiel investigate criminal cases on the contemplative Baltic Sea island of Usedom.But their personal relationship is put to a permanent hard test, as in the heat of the moment several years ago, Karin killed Julia’s father…
Dogs of Berlin (2018)
Criminal: Germany (2019)
Bad Banks (2018)
Bad Banks (2018)
Ambitious Jana is confronted with the unscrupulous machinations of the world of finance. Her working life is determined by egotism, the pressure to succeed and machismo. She soon has to decide how far she is prepared to go for her career.
Tatort (1970)
Tatort (1970)
Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss, crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.
The Team (2015)
The Team (2015)
After a number of murders of prostitutes at a motorway stop near Berlin, in a rear courtyard in Antwerp, and in a brothel in Copenhagen, Europol decides to form a taskforce to tackle the case. Harald, a Dane, Jackie, a German, and Alice from Belgium embark on the hunt for the killer. As the case unfolds, the killings prove to be just the tip of the iceberg, the iceberg itself being a large, pan-European criminal organization involved in everything from drugs and financial crime to corruption, hired killings and not least people trafficking , illegal labor and prostitution.
Morgen hör ich auf (2016)
Morgen hör ich auf (2016)
An overwhelmed family man (Bastian Pastewka) starts to produce counterfeit money in his own run down print shop.
