Movies like Asphalt (1929)
The best movies like Asphalt (1929) are The Lives of Others (2006), Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020) and Lola (1981). If Asphalt hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedM (1931)8.1/10 from 2,596 votes
- NewestBlood & Gold (2023)Released 2023
- In GermanThe Lives of Others (2006)Also in German
The Lives of Others (2006)
In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisBerlin Alexanderplatz (2020)
In 2015, thirty year old refugee Francis, the sole survivor of a boat that illegally crossed the Mediterranean, is drawn into Berlin's seedy underbelly.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLola (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 thisThe Good German (2006)
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who washes up at a lakeside mansion during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers. Soon his investigation connects with his search for his married pre-war German lover.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisChristiane F. (1981)
A teen girl in 1970s Berlin becomes addicted to heroin. Everything in her life slowly begins to distort and disappear as she befriends a small crew of junkies and falls in love with a drug-abusing male prostitute.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisM (1931)
In this classic German thriller, Hans Beckert, a serial killer who preys on children, becomes the focus of a massive Berlin police manhunt. Beckert's heinous crimes are so repellant and disruptive to city life that he is even targeted by others in the seedy underworld network. With both cops and criminals in pursuit, the murderer soon realizes that people are on his trail, sending him into a tense, panicked attempt to escape justice.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisPushover (1954)
A police detective falls for the bank robber's girlfriend he is supposed to be tailing.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAntares (2004)
A deadly car crash sets off three parallel stories of women at crisis points, faltering behind the doors of the same, plain Vienna apartment block.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisA Woman in Berlin (2008)
A woman tries to survive the invasion of Berlin by the Soviet troops during the last days of World War II.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWanda (1970)
After a string of abusive relationships, Wanda abandons her family and seeks solace in the company of a petty criminal.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Big Combo (1955)
Police Lt. Leonard Diamond vies to bring a clever, well connected, and sadistic gangster to justice all the while obsessing over the gangster's girlfriend.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 thisBlood & Gold (2023)
At the end of World War II, a German soldier is looking for his daughter while an SS troop is looking for a Jewish treasure.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBerlin Express (1948)
In post-war Europe, a diverse group of passengers aboard a U.S. Army train to bombed-out Frankfurt becomes involved in a Nazi assassination plot.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe American Friend (1977)
Tom Ripley, an American who deals in forged art, is slighted at an auction in Hamburg by picture framer Jonathan Zimmerman. When Ripley is asked by gangster Raoul Minot to kill a rival, he suggests Zimmerman, and the two, exploiting Zimmerman's terminal illness, coerce him into being a hitman.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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 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 thisFlawless (2007)
A female executive and a night janitor conspire to commit a daring diamond heist from their mutual employer, The London Diamond Corporation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFaust (2011)
A doctor in early 19th-century Germany becomes infatuated with the sister of a man he unintentionally killed and bargains with the Devil incarnate to conjure their union in exchange for his soul.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPhantom Halo (2014)
Two brothers barely scrape by as their father continues to gamble and drink away the money they do bring home. They hatch a plan for a robbery but at what price?
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
SnoozefestMovies like thisKLK Calling PTZ – The Red Orchestra (1971)
East German film about the history of Red Orchestra, a real life German pro-Soviet spy ring created after the rise of Hitler that turned into a resistance movement led by a leftist Nazi officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen, and Arvid Harnack.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Not For, or Against (Quite the Contrary) (2003)
"Ni Pour, Ni Contre" tracks the fall of a young TV camerawoman, Caty, after she becomes involved with a group of petty criminals and their enigmatic leader, Jean. The gang lives hand-to-mouth until the day Jean plans a daring bank robbery. Although other gang members feel out of their league, Jean persuades them to take part and Caty finds herself in a hellish world of betrayal, violence and murder.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisShort Circuit 2 (1988)
Robot Johnny 5 moves to the city to help his friend Ben Jahrvi with his toy manufacturing enterprise, only to be manipulated by criminals who want to use him for their own nefarious purposes.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Night is Mine (1958)
Four criminals break into the home of a jewelry merchant, Sanpodo, rob the diamonds, and escape. However, one of them receives a bullet during a skirmish between bandits, and the second is wounded by the police. To help their wounded comrades, criminals lock themselves in a city clinic...
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Robin Hood (1913)
Robin Hood and his followers aid the poor and oppressed from their hideout in Sherwood Forest, pursued by the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Love, Money, Love (2000)
David, a recently fired scrapyard worker and Marie, a prostitute, both about 20 years old, meet on New Year's Eve in Berlin and decide to run away together. As David's arm is plastered from an accident Marie continues to prostitute herself to finance their restless journey through the Ruhr area. Their love and their will to survive guide them though all problems.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Matar al Nani (1988)
The story of El Nani, a juvenile delinquent from the years of the Transition, whose disappearance in a police station after an interrogation has not yet been clarified, putting the accent on the denunciation of police brutality and speculating on the outcome of the story. A story that mixes political denunciation and social chronicle of an era.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
The Four Musketeers (1974)
The Four Musketeers defend the queen and her dressmaker from Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Asphalt?
The closest matches to Asphalt are The Lives of Others (2006), Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020) and Lola (1981). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Asphalt?
Start with The Lives of Others (2006), the closest match to Asphalt.
What is the highest-rated movie like Asphalt?
M (1931), rated 8.1/10 by 2,596 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Asphalt?
Blood & Gold (2023) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Asphalt?
Yes: The Lives of Others (2006), Berlin Alexanderplatz (2020) and Lola (1981).
How are movies similar to Asphalt chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Asphalt, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.