Movies like Mephisto (1981)
The best movies like Mephisto (1981) are Lola (1981), Age of Cannibals (2014) and The Visit (1964). If Mephisto hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.

Quick picks
- Highest ratedWoman in Gold (2015)7.3/10 from 1,492 votes
- NewestBonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024)Released 2024
- In GermanLola (1981)Also in German
Lola (1981)
Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute exults in her power as a temptress of men, but she wants out—she wants money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor against the new straight-arrow building commissioner, Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale. Shot in childlike candy colors, Fassbinder’s homage to Josef von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel stands as a satiric tribute to capitalism.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAge of Cannibals (2014)
Öllers and Niederländer have everything under control. For the past six years, the two successful business consultants have been traveling through some of the seediest countries around the world in order to satisfy their clients greed. They have achieved almost everything, but there is one career move left: to finally become a partner in the company! When they find out that their team colleague Hellinger made the cut, they are at their wits end. Up or Out is the name of the game. The fact that Hellinger falls from an office window for no explainable reason doesnt seem to help the situation. Of all people, the young and ambitious Bianca steps in for Hellinger. Öllers and Niederländer are irritated, sarcasm spreads, neuroses break out. The fight for survival within the company takes its toll the AGE OF CANNIBALS dawns.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Visit (1964)
Carla Zachanassian had a child by Serge Miller as a teenager. When Serge refused to marry her, she was driven out of town. By her own wit and cunning, she has returned as a multi-millionaire for a visit. The town lays out the red carpet expecting big things from Carla, only to learn that her sole purpose is to see Serge Miller killed...
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisEscape to Victory (1981)
A group of POWs in a German prison camp during World War II play the German National Soccer Team in this powerful film depicting the role of prisoners during wartime.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHome (2021)
An ex-felon returns home from prison and must confront the demons of his past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPhoenix (2014)
In the aftermath of WWII, German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly has to undergo facial reconstructive surgery following her survival from Auschwitz. Without recognising Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he's betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelgänger.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn a Land That No Longer Exists (2022)
It's 1989 in East Berlin: Suzie is kicked out of school shortly before she graduates from high school and has to defend herself as a worker in the cable factory. However, a randomly taken photo leads her to the fashion world of the GDR. The editor-in-chief Elsa Wilbrodt put her on the cover of Sibylle, the fashion magazine of the GDR. In the Berlin underground scene she made the acquaintance of the gay fashion designer Rudi and the photographer Coyote. Suzie must decide if she's brave enough to leave the old strands behind forever.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWoman in Gold (2015)
Maria Altmann, an octogenarian Jewish refugee, takes on the government to recover artwork she believes rightfully belongs to her family.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024)
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHitler: The Last Ten Days (1973)
Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provides a bleak look at the goings-on within, and without.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisDespair (1978)
Berlin, 1930, during the rise of Nazism. Hermann Hermann, a Russian emigrant and chocolate manufacturer, married to the capricious Lydia, loses his temper more and more every day when dealing with his workers and other businessmen; until he meets Felix, a vagrant, who seems to be physically identical to him; a disconcerting fact that leads Hermann Hermann to plot a particular way out of a fake world he actually hates.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)
In 1943, as Hitler continues to wage war across Europe, a group of college students mount an underground resistance movement in Munich. Dedicated expressly to the downfall of the monolithic Third Reich war machine, they call themselves the White Rose. One of its few female members, Sophie Scholl is captured during a dangerous mission to distribute pamphlets on campus with her brother Hans. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to the White Rose, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSwing Kids (1993)
The story of a close-knit group of young kids in Nazi Germany who listen to banned swing music from the US. Soon dancing and fun leads to more difficult choices as the Nazis begin tightening the grip on Germany. Each member of the group is forced to face some tough choices about right, wrong, and survival.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisIn the Aisles (2018)
Christian, a reclusive young man from Leipzig, gets a job working the night shift at a big-box store. He's trained to stocks goods and operate a forklift by Bruno, a wistful former truck driver, who introduces Christian to a colorful group of overnight workers, including Marion, with whom Christian develops a troubled infatuation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Zone of Interest (2023)
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMunich - The Edge of War (2021)
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe German Lesson (2019)
In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Monuments Men (2014)
Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on seven over-the-hill, out-of-shape museum directors, artists, architects, curators, and art historians who went to the front lines of WWII to rescue the world’s artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their rightful owners. With the art hidden behind enemy lines, how could these guys hope to succeed?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWinged Creatures (2009)
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisWoman of Straw (1964)
Anthony Richmond schemes to get the fortune of his tyrannical, wheelchair-using tycoon uncle Charles Richmond by persuading Maria, a nurse he employs, to marry him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisA Voice From Mauthausen (2014)
One of the first ‘frogmen’ in the Navy Reserve fights to survive missions behind enemy lines and his own capture at the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Fair Play (2006)
A company, where manipulation and harassment is a problem between colleagues, decides to organize a canyoning trip for its employees. The building tensions between co-workers might actually explode during this trip.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Feed Me (2013)
Feed Me is a story about a young family in a suburban area in Southern California. The father, Jason (Cameron Graham), is an ambitious executive who keeps getting promoted in a large corporation. The mother, Christy (Mitra Avani), is a step aerobics instructor, who dedicates her life to caring for her 4 years old daughter Alicia (Duna DiVito). However, everything changes when Alicia suddenly starts disappearing every night. Jason contemplates his job security in devoting a great deal of time to this disturbing family issue. Christy believes that she can save her daughter by developing her medium skills. Alicia seems to remember nothing when she reappears, and malevolent forces may be placing her in a state between the unconscious to the subconscious.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
General Della Rovere (1959)
In WWII-Italy, the Gestapo blackmails a con man to impersonate a dead partisan commander in order to extract information from his fellow inmates.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisMr. Skeffington (1944)
A beautiful but vain woman who rejects the love of her older husband must face the loss of her youth and beauty.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Golden Era (2014)
"Yesterday, by the afternoon, I went to see if our theater was still there. And it was".
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Alias Nick Beal (1949)
After straight-arrow district attorney Joseph Foster says in frustration that he would sell his soul to bring down a local mob boss, a smooth-talking stranger named Nick Beal shows up with enough evidence to seal a conviction. When that success leads Foster to run for governor, Beal's unearthly hold on him turns the previously honest man corrupt, much to the displeasure of his wife and his steadfast minister.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Das Zeugenhaus (2014)
Witnesses about to testify at the Nuremberg War Trials needed a safe place to wait. All under one roof, each with their own secrets. And the countess assigned to take care of them. What was her secret?
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Witness (1992)
In the Second World War, probably in a concentration camp somewhere, Gary Sinise is a soldier who conducts Jews everyday to some place where only clothes come back, under the eyes of an young prisoner boy (Elijah Wood). This witness disturbs the soldier, driving the story to a tragic and sad end and a new beginning.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert (2018)
The award-winning show is re-imagined as a live concert event, featuring an all-star cast of recording artists, set during the last week of Jesus' life as he deals with betrayal, love and jealousy, and told from the perspective of Judas.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Mephisto?
The closest matches to Mephisto are Lola (1981), Age of Cannibals (2014) and The Visit (1964). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Mephisto?
Start with Lola (1981), the closest match to Mephisto.
What is the highest-rated movie like Mephisto?
Woman in Gold (2015), rated 7.3/10 by 1,492 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Mephisto?
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Mephisto?
Yes: Lola (1981), Age of Cannibals (2014) and Phoenix (2014).
How are movies similar to Mephisto chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Mephisto, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.



























