Best German mystery movies

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

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.

An aging thief hopes to retire and live off his ill-gotten wealth when a young kid convinces him into doing one last heist.

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.

As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.

The story of CARGO takes place on rusty space-freighter KASSANDRA on its way to Station 42. The young medic LAURA is the only one awake on board while the rest of the crew lies frozen in hibernation sleep. In 4 months will Laura's shift be over.

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.

A coroner finds a capsule in the head of a heavily mutilated corpse, containing a phone number and single word: the name of his daughter.

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.

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.

A professional cellist has an encounter with a stranger on the subway which has unexpected and far-reaching ramifications on his life.

In 2016 the sun has turned the entire world into a scorched and barren wasteland. The humans who have survived are either resourceful or violent, and sometimes both. Marie, her little sister Leonie, and best friend Phillip, are in a car headed to the mountains - rumor has it there is water there. Along the way they meet Tom, a first-rate mechanic. But can they trust him? Fraught with deep distrust, the group is lured into an ambush where their real battle for survival begins.

Famed architect Jeremy Angust is approached on his trip to the Paris Airport by a chatty girl named Texel Textor who needs a ride. He obliges and after they part ways at the airport entrance, he misses his flight. As he settles in the lounge, he encounters the mysterious young Texel again, who insists on telling her strange story — and the conversation grows stranger and more twisted until it turns sinister and deadly.

While doing a friend a favour and searching for a runaway teenager, a police detective stumbles upon a bizarre band of criminals about to pull off a bank robbery. The screenplay by Christopher Cannan and Steve Barancik is based on the short story "The House in Turk Street" by Dashiell Hammett.

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.

A successful artist loses control of his life after his young daughter's death. A chance for a new start appears, but all is not what it seems.

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.

A domestic house cat named Francis investigates the grisly feline murders taking place in his new neighborhood.

There is a war in the world between the men and the women. A young girl tries to escape this reality and comes to a hidden place where a strange unicorn lives with a family: sister, brother, many children and an old woman that never leaves her bed but stays in contact with the world through her radio.

After a massive party one evening, 17-year-old Tina begins experiencing nightmares in which she is haunted by an unusual creature.

Kingdom of Hungary, 17th century. As she gets older, powerful Countess Erzsébet Báthory (1560-1614), blinded by the passion that she feels for a younger man, succumbs to the mad delusion that blood will keep her young and beautiful forever.

A young woman moves to a high-rise apartment building and soon begins to be tormented by an unknown stalker who seems to know her every move.

Luz, a young cabdriver, drags herself into the brightly lit entrance of a run-down police station. A demonic entity follows her, determined to finally be close to the woman it loves.

After several Catholic school pupils are murdered, a teacher who is having an affair with one of his students becomes a suspect. When other gruesome murders start occurring shortly thereafter, the teacher suspects that he may be the cause of them.

When the world is in shambles, plagued by a zombie outbreak, only the strong will survive, but just how much determination will it take? Will Luke and his crew have enough ambition and ammunition to stay alive long enough to save the human race?

1975, Swiss Alps: In a remote mountain village, a beautiful and mysterious woman shows up. Only the village policeman takes care of the strange woman and tries to find out who she is. There are hints that she came from the Höhenalp Alp, where herdsmen do unthinkable things to get the company of women. Many dark truths are revealed that should better have remained hidden. A tragedy of lust, insanity and murder is brought to a seemlingly pure and perfect world. It is the beginning of a nightmare of religious insanity, hypocrisy, abuse and belief in demons, who destroys a young family and brings a whole village to destruction.

A reporter is murdered while driving to his job. The Police are contacted by a clairvoyant who saw the death in a vision, but some dark force is preventing him from seeing the man behind the crime...

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.

To regain her sense of smell and get back her lover, a detective joins forces with a perfume maker who uses deadly methods to create the perfect scent.

Day in, day out, Niklas ‘Nick’ Tschiller and his partner Yalcin Gümer investigate crimes that are happening in Hamburg. But at some point even the policeman needs a break to spend time with his daughter Lenny. Then it says: Tschiller a.D. - out of service - goodbye to Hamburg. However, simply relaxing is easier said than done, because crime never sleeps and a new, very personal case throws a spanner in the works for Nick's plans for a well-deserved break. Even on vacation, the criminal investigator is not sure about his job and so a wild journey soon takes him across Europe, including to Istanbul and Moscow.

The hobby detectives “The Three Investigators” want to take a little break. So they take advantage of an offer from Peter's father, who has accepted a job in South Africa and wants to take the detectives there. But Jupiter, Peter and Bob wouldn't be the three investigators marks feared by the criminal world if they just lounged around in the sun on their vacation. So it's no wonder that the clever boys soon have their next case to solve...

Documentary based on the book by Erich Von Daniken concerning the ancient mysteries of the world, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Mexico, ancient cave drawings, the monuments of Easter Island, etc. and the fact that these things and modern civilization could have been influenced by extra-terrestrial visitations hundreds(or perhaps thousands) of years ago.

A new case for the cult detectives! Not by coincidence, a mysterious videotape falls into the hands of Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw and Bob Andrews during Jupiter's birthday party in Rocky Beach. On it is a recording of Jupiter's long dead parents. In their message they want to communicate to their son the key to an especially tricky riddle.

Berlin, 1923. Following the suicide of his brother, American circus acrobat Abel Rosenberg attempts to survive while facing unemployment, depression, alcoholism and the social decay of Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Frank left his life as a soldier behind and wants to rebuild his life in Brandenburg. He is on his way to meet his daughter, Lily, after a long time of not seeing her. As he stops at a gas station he meets Andreas, who needs a ride to Berlin. Reluctantly, Frank agrees to take Andreas with him - unaware of the consequences.

In the Olden Tymes, Count Regula is drawn and quartered for killing twelve virgins in his dungeon torture chamber. Thirty-five years later, he comes back to seek revenge on the daughter of his intended thirteenth victim and the son of his prosecutor in order to attain immortal life.

Johannes, a doctor of physics, travels with his doctoral supervisor to a scientific congress in the Alps. A series of mysterious incidents occur on site. He meets Karin, a mysterious jazz pianist who seems to know more about him than she can know. Suddenly, mysterious deaths begin to pile up and Johannes tries to uncover the secret under the mountain.

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.

After inheriting a run-down castle, a dispirited woman and her ill-tempered husband decide to spend the night, as time and reality shift around them.

A maniac on the loose is committing savage acts of slaughter, and one survivor may be the only key to unmasking the serial slayer known as the Half-Moon Killer. The mysterious half-moon lockets he leaves with his victims could be the only key to unraveling his sinister motives, but will that be enough before he completes his ice-cold plot to claim his intended seven victims?

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.

Michael Haneke's adaptation of Franz Kafka's unfinished novel Das Schloss. K arrives in a remote village a stranger. In attempting to establish himself there, he enters the nightmarish world of the castle bureaucracy.

When Irene takes a position at a hotel deep in the woods of the Austrian Alps, she soon discovers the girl she replaced vanished without a trace.

F.M. discovers that different sonic frequencies induce different patterns of behaviour in listeners, first in his own studio but later in the local "H-Burger" restaurant where the passive muzak appears to be wiping people's emotions.

Victor is both thrilled and mystified when his family moves into his grand-uncles somber mansion filled with African masks, taxidermy crocodile mounts - and a dark secret: Four decades ago, his grand-cousin Cecilia, at the same age as he is now, lost her life in the mansions impressive staircase, and the circumstances of her death still remain obscure.

The sinister Count Oetsch scandalizes the aristocratic social gathering at Castle Vogelod as he announces his intention to "crash" the festivities. Baroness Safferstätt is expected shortly, and the guests are well-aware of the rumors that Count Oetsch murdered the baroness' late husband. Oetsch refuses to leave, vowing that he will reveal the identity of the real killer. Before the weekend is through, the Count and Baroness will reveal secrets too shocking to be believed!

A rich man bequeaths seven keys to seven of his friends, but only one will unlock the door to untold wealth.

While investigating the death of a friend and fellow cop, Los Angeles police officer Barney Caine stumbles across evidence that Nazis created a synthetic alternative to gasoline during World War II. This revelation has the potential to end the established global oil industry, making the formula a very valuable and dangerous piece of information. Eventually, Caine must contend with oil tycoon Adam Steiffel, who clearly has his own agenda regarding the formula.

In the 70s Matteusz Gdula invented an acting method that was supposed to make every actor “shine”. Still, lots of his students die mysteriously and Gdula commits suicide. His method gets banned. Now: Stella, an ambitious, but rather untalented drama student, gets accepted at the „Matteusz Gdula“-school. When she bears witness to some strange occurrences, she gets drawn into the bizarre and deadly web that surrounds the dark secret of the school...

In a small port town at the end of the 19th century children are disappearing. A mysterious man in black who stalks the town may be Death itself. And nine-year-old Laurin is suffering terrifying dreams and hallucinations of a man carrying a sack and frightened children calling for help from behind closed windows.

Under the surface of the earth hides horror for a young man, when in a fever of fear he finds the head of his former lover. His only way is to escape, but the power of thought leads him back to the place of past happiness. Can the feeling of love in life be restored? The heartbeat calls him to himself in the fortress of nature. But there already wakes up an echo of the past.

As a forestry student doing an internship, Anja Grimm ends up in that remote area in the Upper Palatinate Forest, where she went on vacation with her parents as an eight-year-old girl and her father disappeared without a trace. Her job is to take soil samples to create a soil map. At one point in the forest floor she comes across abnormal irregularities. Not long after their arrival, a brutal murder occurs. Anja soon arouses suspicion and hostility not only among the villagers with her suspicion that the perpetrator knows something about her father's fate and with her questions about the atypical soil composition in the forest clearing. Even the police react extremely reservedly to their investigations. And when it turns out that the young woman can read the signs of the forest like an open book, forces mobilize in the village who are apparently ready for anything because there is a dark secret that needs to be kept.

A hooded serial killer finds a novel way to murder his victims--he lashes them to death with a whip. The police try to track him down before any more murders occur.

Following her parents' death, Vanessa was raised in a convent. Due to an inheritance, she travels to Hong Kong to learn that she inherited a chain of bordellos. Soon, Vanessa has trouble coping as she's thrust into her new world of carnal delights.

Rival gangsters from Chicago move to London and attempt to extort money from rich Britons.

A dinner party turns strange as two couples can't decide which memories are real or not.

Police try to track down a hooded serial killer who murders his victims with a combination of acid and poison gas

Hans Baerlach is a Swiss police detective who has dedicated much of his career to pursuing powerful and allegedly murderous businessman Richard Gastmann. Though Baerlach's partner meets his demise while investigating Gastmann, his replacement, Walter Tschanz, is undaunted. Meanwhile, the lovely Anna Crawley becomes involved in the case, which proceeds to take many twists and turns.

A Chinese detective breaks up a drug smuggling ring and tries to find the "Daffodil Killer". The drug smugglers had devised the ingenious method of smuggling heroin from Hong Kong in the stems of daffodils.

A long truck is cutting its way through the darkness. Trucker Ray decides that it`s going to be his last ride, when a solitary voice out of the radio is holding him back. Just then he drives by a blood covered girl wandering down the street. Lost as he is, she is strolling through the darkness and so he decides to take her with him. But when he discovers that Ingrid is tracing a trail of destruction and has nothing to lose he starts to hope that she is the one to set him free. But is he ready to leave his past behind and be free?

It was Peter's idea to invite his friends on a joyride on Justus' birthday of all days. In pouring rain, a car breakdown forces the three detectives to seek refuge at the creepy "Blackstone" castle. When lightning knocks out the power line, the three investigators are stuck for good. It soon becomes clear to the three junior detectives that the lord of the castle, Count Gallagher, is a real chess fanatic. But not only that - the old castle makes a spooky impression and then there is Moe, the count's sinister servant. What is it about the chess pieces on the dilapidated, centuries-old chess table that seem to move by themselves, move after move, as if by magic? Is the old building really haunted? The first detective is immediately hooked and senses a new case, only Peter wants to run away. It soon becomes clear to the three investigators that this is about much more than just a game of chess...

A circus becomes the location for stolen loot and murder.

While on a GPS treasure hunt in the Palatinate forest four teenagers come across an old US military radio tower station. Back in the days of the Cold War it was part of a secret military program that produced horrific side effects, but has long since abandoned. Until now, when the station is mysteriously powered up again.

Blue Rita runs a nightclub and gases and kidnaps men there for her pleasure and torture.