Discover the best of Austrian cinema, film, and television
Discover the definitive list of popular and critically-acclaimed movies and TV shows from Austria. Find your next binge-watch, streaming on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Prime Video, and other top services!
The cinema of Austria
Austrian cinema is a world of intellectual precision and provocative artistry, a film culture that bravely looks beneath the beautiful surface of things to explore the human psyche. Its legacy is surprisingly deep, with many of Hollywood’s golden age masters, like Billy Wilder and Fred Zinnemann, hailing from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. This tradition of cinematic excellence exploded again in the modern era, establishing Austria as a home for some of Europe's most challenging and acclaimed filmmakers. The central figure is undoubtedly Michael Haneke, a master director whose unflinching films like the Oscar-winning Amour and Palme d'Or recipient The White Ribbon are renowned for their cool, formal brilliance. Alongside him, directors like Ulrich Seidl have created a unique and influential style of social commentary. But to think Austrian screen culture is only severe would be a mistake. The nation also produced one of the world's most beloved and cheerful television exports: Inspector Rex, the crime-fighting German Shepherd whose adventures were a smash-hit in over a hundred countries. What defines Austrian cinema is this very confidence. It is unafraid to challenge its audience with complex psychological dramas, yet it can also produce pure, joyful entertainment. It’s a cinema of immense depth, skill, and surprising variety.
Best Austrian series
Freud 2020
Eager to make his name in 19th-century Vienna, a hungry young Sigmund Freud joins a psychic and an inspector to solve a string of bloody mysteries.
63
Pagan Peak 2019
When a gruesomely staged body is found at the German-Austrian border, two detectives investigate. As the ritual-like murders continue, they enter the killer’s sinister world, set in the Alpine wilderness.
77
Woman of the Dead 2022
In a vengeful quest to find out who killed her husband, a woman ends up exposing her small community's deepest and ugliest secrets.
69
Kitz 2021
Seeking revenge on the girl she blames for her brother's death, a Kitzbühel waitress infiltrates the glitzy world of a group of wealthy Munich teens.
61
Inspector Rex 1994
After his handler is killed, police dog Rex teams up with recently-divorced inspector Richard Moser to investigate crimes and solve mysteries on the streets of Vienna. And they sometimes get help from their two-legged friend, Inspector Stockinger.
68
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.
71
Best Austrian movies
Goodnight Mommy 2015
In the heat of the summer lays a lonesome house in the countryside where nine year old twin brothers await their mother’s return. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before and the children start to doubt whether this woman is actually who she says she is.
67
Funny Games 1997
Two psychotic young men take a mother, father, and son hostage in their vacation cabin and force them to play sadistic "games" with one another for their own amusement.
73
Exterritorial 2025
When her son vanishes inside a US consulate, ex-special forces soldier Sara does everything in her power to find him — and uncovers a dark conspiracy.
63
Chalet Girl 2011
While working a job at an exclusive ski resort to support her Dad, Kim learns to snowboard and is so good at it that she enters a competition with a huge cash prize. She has to dig deep to overcome her fears, but her life gets more complicated through her spoken-for boss, Jonny.
66
Rubikon 2022
The company soldier Hannah and the scientists Gavin and Dimitri are researching an algae project on board the Rubikon space station, which is supposed to permanently supply humanity with oxygen and food. But suddenly the earth disappears below them in a brown, toxic fog and all contact is broken off - are they the last survivors of humanity? Should they initiate the safe station, dare the return flight and thereby risk their lives?
55
The Dark Valley 2014
The Alps, late 19th century. Greider, a mysterious lone rider who claims to be a photographer, arrives at an isolated lumber village, despotically ruled by a family clan, asking for winter accommodation.
68