6 best German TV shows on Netflix

If you’re wanting to improve your pronunciation and pick up some bonus slang terms, watching TV or movies in German can be a nice alternative to a language course. And with internet streaming services like Netflix increasingly making a concerted effort to produce high-quality, foreign-language content, the pickings have never been so great. 

German series on Netflix

The problem is, with so many great TV shows to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start. That’s where we come in. We’ve trawled through the catalogue to find the best (in our opinion) German TV shows on Netflix in Germany. We’ve made sure they all have subtitles in English and German (if your language ability is up to it, it will boost your learning even further!) So get bingeing. 

1. Dark

We’ll start with the obvious: if you haven’t seen Germany’s answer to Stranger Things, you’d better get watching. In this moody, mind-bending series, a missing child case sets four families on a frantic hunt for answers in a mystery that spans three generations.

2. The Crime Scene Cleaner (Der Tartortreiniger) 

This wildly successful dark comedy follows the exploits of Heiko “Schotty” Schotte, who works cleaning up the last traces of the living in and around Hamburg. He’s supposed to clean up messes, but he invariably ends up creating more. 

3. Charité

If you like a good period drama, you are in for a treat. The two seasons of Charité examine the famous hospital in Berlin at two very different moments of upheaval: the enormous social transformation and medical breakthroughs of Wilhelmine Germany in season one, and during the tumultuous events of the National Socialist regime in season two. 

4. Dogs of Berlin

When a famous Turkish-German football player is murdered, racial tensions in Berlin hit an all-time high. The suspect list includes everybody from neo-Nazis and football fans to Turkish nationalists and the Berlin mafia. But one of the investigating officers has links to the criminal underworld, which threatens to mire the whole case in controversy. 

5. Ku’damm 56

Dance studio owner Caterina Schöllack has three daughters: Helga, Eva and Monika. While Helga and Eva are well-behaved girls who are preparing for marriage and children, as is expected of women in the 1950s, feisty Monika defies her mother and sets off to fight for self-determined sexuality and equal rights.

6. Weissensee 

Set in Cold War-era Germany, this critically-acclaimed drama sees two very different families - one staunchly committed to the communist regime and the Stasi secret police, the other outspoken dissidents - become united by an unexpected romance. It’s like Romeo and Juliet, only set in East Berlin.  

Enjoy these German TV series!

Entertainment and learning, what could be better? Get that TV on - we hope you enjoy the show!