From the streets of Weimar Berlin to the alpine borders of Bavaria, ten essential German crime series from a tradition reshaped by streaming.
German crime television, for decades dominated by the Sunday-night procedural Tatort, has been transformed in the streaming era. The success of Babylon Berlin in 2017 demonstrated that German production could compete with the most ambitious American and British work; the international breakout of Dark on Netflix in the same year proved that the country's writers and producers could deliver genre television at scale. The result is a body of work that ranges from prestige period thrillers to sharp Cold War spy series to cult-followed Berlin gang dramas.
This list spans ten years of German production, including Grimme Award winners, Netflix breakout hits, and acclaimed ARD and ZDF dramas. Whether you're new to German crime TV or filling in the gaps, here are ten series you need to watch.
1. Babylon Berlin (2017)
Dir. Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries, Henk Handloegten · Germany · Crime / Thriller
The most expensive German television production ever made, and worth every pfennig. Set in Weimar Berlin at the end of the 1920s, as the city slides toward fascism and the economy collapses, Babylon Berlin is a crime series that is also a historical epic: part noir, part political thriller, part social panorama of a city at its most brilliant and most doomed.
Volker Kutscher's novels provide the source material, but the show expands them into something genuinely cinematic. The recreation of late-Weimar Berlin (its cabarets, its political violence, its sexual freedom alongside its gathering dread) is extraordinary. Detective Gereon Rath and the resourceful Charlotte Ritter make for a compelling pairing at the centre of it all. Crime television that doubles as history.
2. Dark (2017)
Dir. Baran bo Odar · Germany · Sci-Fi / Mystery / Thriller / Drama
Netflix's first German original is a small-town mystery that opens with the disappearance of a child and expands, across three remarkably tightly plotted seasons, into something far stranger. Created by Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, Dark is set in the fictional town of Winden, where a nuclear power plant casts a literal and metaphorical shadow over four interconnected families.
The show became one of the most globally watched non-English-language Netflix productions of its decade, and is widely cited as the first European series to genuinely match the formal ambition of contemporary American prestige television. The German cast — across multiple time periods, with each actor played by three different performers — is one of the great ensemble achievements of streaming-era TV. A series that rewards every minute of its concentration.
3. Pagan Peak (2019)
Dir. Cyrill Boss, Philipp Stennert · Germany / Austria · Crime / Thriller
One of the most atmospheric crime series of recent years. A body is found on the Bavarian-Austrian border, posed in a ritualistic manner evoking Alpine pagan mythology. An Austrian detective and a Bavarian investigator are forced to work together across jurisdictions, and across very different temperaments and cultures.
The show uses its mountain setting brilliantly: the landscape is vast, beautiful, and deeply unsettling. Nora Waldstätten and Nicholas Ofczarek are excellent as the mismatched pair at its centre. If you've exhausted the Scandinavian canon and are looking for something with the same slow-burn intensity but a different geography, Pagan Peak is exactly what you need. Two seasons, self-contained, and criminally underseen outside Germany and Austria.
4. Deutschland 83 (2015)
Dir. Anna Winger · Germany · Drama / Thriller
An East German border guard (Jonas Nay) is recruited by the Stasi and sent across the wall as an undercover spy in the West German army. Anna Winger's series, the first German-language drama to air on a major US network, became a cult international success and was followed by two further seasons (Deutschland 86 and Deutschland 89) that follow the same protagonist through the late Cold War.
The show treats the East German experience with unusual specificity (and a soundtrack of Western 1980s pop that becomes part of the protagonist's culture shock). Winger has gone on to create Unorthodox and Transatlantic, two further German productions that have travelled internationally. Among the most rigorous spy series produced anywhere in the past decade.
5. Bad Banks (2018)
Dir. Christian Schwochow · Germany / Luxembourg · Drama / Thriller
A young investment banker (Paula Beer) is dismissed from her Luxembourg job and immediately picked up by a major Frankfurt bank, where she is drawn into a complex of corporate manoeuvres she only partly understands. Christian Schwochow's series is the most accomplished European drama yet made about international finance.
Beer, in her breakthrough role, anchors the show; the supporting cast (Désirée Nosbusch, Albrecht Schuch, Tobias Moretti) is uniformly strong. The series won the Grimme Award for Best Drama and was a key step in the recent flourishing of German prestige television. Two seasons of dense, fast, intelligent corporate thriller — closer in spirit to Industry than to anything traditionally associated with German TV.
6. 4 Blocks (2017)
Dir. Marvin Kren · Germany · Crime / Drama / Thriller
Set in the Arabic-German community of Berlin's Neukölln district, Marvin Kren's series follows the Hamady clan — a Lebanese-German extended family at the centre of organised crime in the city. Kida Khodr Ramadan plays Toni, the family's patriarch, attempting to extract himself from the business while his younger brother (Veysel Gelin) is determined to consolidate it.
The show was the first German production to take immigrant communities seriously as the protagonists rather than the antagonists of a crime series, and was widely cited as a turning point in German television's engagement with the multi-ethnic reality of contemporary Berlin. Three seasons, increasingly tense, with a final run that earns its ambition. The German answer to The Wire.
7. Kleo (2022)
Dir. Bob Konrad · Germany · Crime / Action
An East German Stasi assassin (Jella Haase) is released from prison just before the fall of the Berlin Wall and embarks on a campaign of revenge against the men who framed her. Bob Konrad's series, originally for ZDF and subsequently picked up by Netflix, is the most stylish German crime production of recent years: a 1980s pop-soundtrack-driven, occasionally surreal, occasionally very funny revenge story with a remarkable central performance.
Haase's Kleo (compact, lethal, perpetually amused) became one of the most discussed German television characters of the year. The show's tonal control — moving between black comedy, action, and political thriller without ever losing coherence — is a sign of how much German genre television has matured. Two seasons, with a third confirmed.
8. The Billion Dollar Code (2021)
Dir. Robert Thalheim · Germany · Biography / Crime / Drama / History
A four-part mini-series based on the true story of two Berlin programmers who in the 1990s developed Terravision — a globe-spanning interactive map that, they later claimed, Google had copied to create Google Earth. Robert Thalheim's series intercuts the original development of the project with the patent-infringement trial that took place decades later in a New York courtroom.
The show is at once a portrait of the early-1990s Berlin tech scene (idealistic, anarchic, unmoneyed) and a study in how American capital absorbs European innovation. Mark Waschke and Mišel Matičević are excellent as the two programmers across two timelines. Four self-contained hours that pack the substance of a feature film, one of the most assured German limited series of the decade.
9. Oderbruch (2024)
Dir. Adolfo J. Kolmerer · Germany · Thriller / Mystery
A mass grave is uncovered in the marshlands along the Polish-German border. Maggie Kring (Karoline Schuch), a Berlin investigator with roots in the region, is sent to lead the investigation alongside the local police. The case quickly extends back across decades and across the border, and the show takes its time unfolding the layers of the local community.
Adolfo J. Kolmerer's series is the most accomplished recent German procedural, with a confident sense of place (the Oderbruch is one of the most distinctive landscapes in Eastern Germany) and a willingness to let the investigation breathe across eight episodes. Excellent supporting performances from Hendrik Heutmann and Lucas Gregorowicz. A reminder that German crime TV no longer needs to apologise to anyone.
10. Liebes/Kind (2023)
Dir. Isabel Kleefeld, Julian Pörksen · Germany · Thriller / Drama / Mystery
A woman (Kim Riedle) is found injured on a country road in the early hours of the morning, accompanied by a young girl. She has been missing for thirteen years. Adapted from Romy Hausmann's bestselling novel, this six-part Netflix series unfolds the case across two parallel timelines, building a portrait of captivity that refuses sensationalism in favour of psychological precision.
The show was Netflix's most-watched non-English-language series in its launch week and remains one of the most assured German limited productions of recent years. Riedle's central performance is extraordinarily controlled. The show's structural decisions (when to withhold information, when to reveal it) reward careful viewing across the full six episodes.
The German Tradition
What is striking, looking at these ten series together, is how recent the German prestige tradition is. Almost everything on this list has been made in the past decade. The infrastructure that produces them — international co-production, streaming distribution, the gradual loosening of public-broadcaster conservatism — has only just settled into place. The result is a national television culture that is producing more confident genre work than at any point in its history.
The other through-line is the seriousness with which German crime series engage with national history. Babylon Berlin, Deutschland 83, Kleo, and The Billion Dollar Code are all, in different ways, films about the German twentieth century — Weimar, the Cold War, reunification, the digital transition. The genre, in German hands, is one of the country's most articulate vehicles for self-examination.
Honourable Mention: Murder Mindfully (2024)
Dir. Jens Wischnewski · Germany · Comedy / Crime
Tom Schilling stars in this Netflix dark comedy about a stressed corporate lawyer who, while attempting to commit to a meditation app, is drawn into the world of his most dangerous client. Adapted from Karsten Dusse's bestselling novel, the show treats both mindfulness and organised crime with affectionate ridicule, and provided one of the German breakouts of 2024. Worth seeing if you've enjoyed the more straight-faced entries on this list.
Where to Start
If you're new to German crime TV, Babylon Berlin is the most ambitious entry point and the one most likely to convert sceptics; Dark is the most accessible if you have a tolerance for sci-fi mystery. Pagan Peak is the strongest pure procedural, and Liebes/Kind is the most efficient single-arc thriller. For something a little stranger and stylistically distinct, Kleo is the most enjoyable recent release.
If you enjoyed this list, explore our companion guides — our 10 Must-Watch European Crime Series and our 10 Must-Watch German Films of 2025.
