Thriller and Crime  A Century of High Tension

Terror is outfitted with a monocle, a frog mask, or a laptop. German thrillers are a mirror of collective fears and dark impulses – from Fritz Lang’s M to cyber-thrillers like Who Am I, the genre reflects the country’s turbulent history while delivering the perfect suspense for every social mood.

Seismograph of Fears

Terror is outfitted with a monocle, a frog mask, or a laptop. The spectrum of German thrillers stretches from Fritz Lang’s expressionist supervillains to fog‑drenched Edgar Wallace mysteries and today’s intricate political and cyber‑crime suspense. Together, they form a seismographic record of collective traumas, desires, and dark undercurrents in a country whose turbulent history has produced a fitting thrill for every social mood. “There are certain times when film noir naturally matches the atmosphere. When uncertainty reigns, when financial systems collapse, film noir always finds fertile ground,” filmmaker Werner Herzog (Bad Lieutenant) once remarked. And despite all its seriousness, the genre has always embraced — even parodied — its own theatricality. Perhaps that is why it has managed to do what many crime‑film protagonists do not: it survived.

Already in the 1930s, as the specter of National Socialism began to emerge, Fritz Lang (Metropolis, see Science Fiction section) stared into the abyss with his Dr. Mabuse saga and M (M– Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931). M is not only one of the first major serial‑killer films and a prototype of the psychological thriller — it shows how fear, control, and moral dilemmas corrode both society and state. It raises questions about justice, human nature, and responsibility — questions that remain just as unanswerable nearly a century later.

When a Role Becomes a Curse

The film M is considered one of the first serial‑killer films worldwide and one of the most influential crime films ever made. Today, it is listed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World register and has lost none of its power. Much of that is due to Peter Lorre, whose child murderer Beckert is both killer and victim. Lorre played the role so hauntingly that it became a curse. After fleeing Nazi Germany for the United States, the actor said: “Ever since I came to this country, I’ve tried to leave my past behind. That image from M follows me everywhere.” And indeed it did — he was cast in ambiguous roles for the rest of his career. Unforgettable: his turn as the enigmatic detective in the Mr. Moto series (from 1937 onward). In 1944, Lorre joined Heinrich Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Bertolt Brecht, and other exiled artists in founding the Council for a Democratic Germany in Los Angeles. The mass emigration of filmmakers after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 not only ended socially critical crime storytelling in Germany for the time being — it also infused U.S.-American cinema with the expertise of these exiles. Only after the war did crime thrillers return to German screens as moral provocations. The Girl Rosemarie (1958), based on a real criminal case, exposed the hypocrisy and dark underbelly of West Germany’s economic miracle and caused a scandal for its insinuations about politics and prostitution.

Fog over the Abysses

Still, what audiences sought most in those years was escapism. Alongside sentimental heimat (homeland) films and music film kitsch, the Rialto series Edgar Wallace (1959–1972) let box offices ring. These 32 flamboyant, faux‑British mysteries unfolded in an idealized, romantically eerie, and inevitably fog‑shrouded England — with West Berlin standing in for London. Films like The Frog with the Mask (1959) or The Dead Eyes of London (1961) retain their campy charm to this day. Part of their cult status stems from decades of holiday TV broadcasts, which cemented the familiar formula — the butler is never the culprit, Klaus Kinski plays a madman, Joachim Fuchsberger saves the day — as a nostalgic ritual. Even the parody Der Wixxer (2004), which lovingly deconstructs the Wallace template, has since become a cult classic, fulfilling a childhood dream for comedians Oliver Kalkofe and Bastian Pastewka.
Where Germany’s passion for crime stories comes from has become the subject of academic studies. From the 1970s onward, investigations primarily take place on television. The Sunday‑night series Tatort and Polizeiruf 110, with their socially critical storylines, remain fixtures in many households (and bars) even in the streaming age. Before them, the U.S.‑inspired series Stahlnetz (1958–1968) brought unprecedented tension to German living rooms. The format was so successful that it became a national event — for one hour, everyday life seemed to be put on hold. Stahlnetz entered history as a true “street sweeper.”

Society Under the Lens

Meanwhile, cinema thrillers such as The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975) by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta dissected media hysteria and state repression, reflecting the anxieties and fractures of the era.
The 1970s became the high point of the political thriller. In the GDR, politically charged espionage films dominated.
International attention returned to German thrillers when filmmakers revisited noir through a transatlantic lens. Wim Wenders’ The American Friend (1977), based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel, fused European melancholy with American genre aesthetics, featuring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz in a deadly double game. Oliver Hirschbiegel’s The Experiment (2001), inspired by the Stanford Prison Experiment, became a global hit. The Silence (2010), about a missing girl, also drew international notice — and launched the career of Baran bo Odar, who would later gain worldwide recognition with Who Am I – No System Is Safe (2014) and the Netflix series Dark.

The 21st century has redefined the genre: cyber‑thrillers like Who Am I and real‑time dramas like Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria (2015) explore fears of digitalization and urban life. They depict a Germany haunted not only by its past but also by its hyperconnected present. And perhaps with reason. In an era of overlapping crises, filmmakers are once again turning to the warnings of the Weimar Republic. In summer 2026, ARD begins production on a six‑part Dr. Mabuse series, bringing the iconic supervillain into the present. The dark cyber‑mystery thriller features Friedrich Mücke (Babylon Berlin) and Tom Wlaschiha (Game of Thrones, Stranger Things) in leading roles. One can only hope that this backward glance does not prove as prophetic as it did in Fritz Lang’s time.

Streaming (North America)

• M (1931) – Criterion Channel (US/CA).
• The Experiment (2001) – VOD (Amazon/Apple, US).
• Who Am I (2014) – Netflix (rotating, NA). Victoria (2015) – Kanopy (US, university licenses).
• In the Fade (2017) – Peacock (US).
• Babylon Berlin – MHz Choice (US).
• 4 Blocks – HBO Max, Amazon Prime (US).

03/2026