Movies like Lars
The best movies like Lars are The Lives of Others (2006), Torn Curtain (1966) and Funeral in Berlin (1966). If Lars hooked you, 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 2,594 votes
- NewestExterritorial (2025)Released 2025
- 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
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTorn Curtain (1966)
During the Cold War, an American scientist appears to defect to East Germany as part of a cloak and dagger mission to find the formula for a resin solution—but the plan goes awry when his fiancee, unaware of his motivation, follows him across the border.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisFuneral in Berlin (1966)
Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBarbara (2012)
Exiled to a rural clinic in 1980s East Germany for seeking an exit visa, a disillusioned doctor maintains a guarded distance from her colleagues, unsure if the kindly head physician is a genuine ally or a Stasi informant.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisAlone in Berlin (2016)
Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisExterritorial (2025)
When her son vanishes inside a US consulate, ex-special forces soldier Sara does everything in her power to find him — and uncovers a dark conspiracy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisAtomic Blonde (2017)
An undercover MI6 agent is sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTwo to One (2024)
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a communist family discovers a bunker full of money soon to be worthless. With the help of their neighbors, they embark on a race against time to enter the capitalist world in style.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOctopussy (1983)
James Bond is sent to investigate after a fellow “00” agent is found dead with a priceless Fabergé egg. Bond follows the mystery and uncovers a smuggling scandal and a Russian General who wants to provoke a new World War.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
SnoozefestMovies like thisRetribution (2023)
When a mysterious caller plants a bomb under his car seat, a bank executive begins a high-speed chase across the city to complete a specific series of tasks — all with his kids trapped in the back seat.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Murderers Are Among Us (1946)
After returning from a concentration camp, Susanne finds a traumatized ex-soldier living in her apartment in bombed out Berlin. Together the two try to move past their experiences during WWII.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBalloon (2018)
Two families attempt a daredevil plan to escape the GDR with a homemade hot air balloon, but it crashes just before the border. The Stasi finds traces of this attempt to escape and immediately starts investigations, while the two families are forced to build a new escape balloon. With each passing day the Stasi is closer on their heels – a nerve-wracking race against time begins.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Worth the HypeMovies like thisWhat to Do in Case of Fire? (2001)
The humorous and touching story of six former creative anarchists who lived as house squatters in Berlin during its heyday in the 80s when Berlin was still an island in the middle of the former East Germany. At the end of the 80s, they went their separate ways with the exception of Tim and Hotte, who have remained true to their ideals and continue to fight the issues they did as a group. In 2000, with Berlin as Germany's new capital, an event happens forcing the group out of existential reason to reunite and, ultimately, come to terms with the reason they separated 12 years ago.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStella. A Life. (2024)
Stella, grows up in Berlin during the rule of the Nazi regime. She dreams of a career as a jazz singer, despite all the repressive measures she is forced to go into hiding with her parents in 1944, her life turns into a culpable tragedy.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBuffalo Soldiers (2002)
A criminal subculture operates among U.S. soldiers stationed in West Germany just before the fall of the Berlin wall.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Tunnel (2001)
Inspired by true events, Olympic swimmer Harry Melchior defects from East Germany in the 1960s and hatches a daring plot to help his sister and others flee East Berlin through a 145-yard underground tunnel.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers
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
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisTunnel to Freedom (2021)
13 August 1961: the GDR closes the sector borders in Berlin. The city is divided overnight. Escape to the West becomes more dangerous every day. But on September 14, 1962, exactly one year, one month and one day after the Wall was built, a group of 29 people from the GDR managed to escape spectacularly through a 135-meter tunnel to the West. For more than 4 months, students from West Berlin, including 2 Italians, dug this tunnel. When the tunnel builders ran out of money after only a few meters of digging, they came up with the idea of marketing the escape tunnel. They sell the film rights to the story exclusively to NBC, an American television station.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Beerfest (2006)
During a trip to Germany to scatter their grandfather's ashes, German-American brothers Todd and Jan discover Beerfest, the secret Olympics of downing stout, and want to enter the contest to defend their family's beer-guzzling honor. Their Old Country cousins sneer at the Yanks' chances, prompting the siblings to return to America to prepare for a showdown the following year.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Blue Max (1966)
A young pilot in the German air force of 1918, disliked as lower-class and unchivalrous, tries ambitiously to earn the medal offered for 20 kills.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWe Are the Monsters (2021)
24-year-old Kjell feels trapped in his little village. One day he meets a mysterious young man named Flurin and is immediately fascinated by him. Soon they start spending time together and show one other what it is they each long for.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Der grosse Kanton (2013)
Is the solution to Switzerland's future to integrate Germany into the confederation? After all, like Michael Ringier, CEO of the Ringier media group, says, blithely ignoring all minorities, we're very close in culture and language. Oskar Freysinger takes out his guitar and sings his answer. Politicians from French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino think expanding will help the country survive. The former German foreign minister thinks the two countries' traditions are too different. The banker Oswald Grübel is worried about Germany's debts, although he'd be prepared to take over its assets. With serious interviews interspersed with gags (boat people on Lake Constance, the last Habsburger as a peasant), Giaccobbo gathers off-the-cuff reactions which reveal a lot about the different mentalities. The movie laughs at preconceived notions, redefines neutrality and reflects on what designates a nation. Switzerland, which loves to teach the world a lesson, will soon helvetize the planet, oder?
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Wartburg - Power, Religion, Revolution (2025)
Wartburg Castle has towered majestically over the Thuringian Forest for almost a thousand years. The medieval building is a living testimony to Germany's complex history - and is a symbol of freedom, power and culture. This documentary explores its long and eventful history.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Mother Night (1996)
An American spy behind the lines during WWII serves as a Nazi propagandist, a role he cannot escape in his future life as he can never reveal his real role in the war.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisUn jour en Allemagne (2016)
With aerial shots filmed from helicopters and drones, moments of life and encounters, this abundant geographical narrative offers a unique perspective on today's Germany, providing an overview of a territory undergoing profound change. Committed to an unprecedented energy transition, Germany has been working for several years to reconcile economic development with respect for nature. This challenge is profoundly transforming its urban and rural landscapes, even though they still bear the traces of a partition that the reunification of a little over a quarter of a century ago has not completely erased.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Nightshade (1972)
A man wants to buy a house in Lower Saxony where he meets a mysterious woman.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Exploring the Brandenburg Marche (1982)
On a forest road in the Brandenburg March, village teacher Potsch accidentally encounters the distinguished Professor Menzel, who got stuck there in his car. In the conversation that ensues, Menzel and Pötsch quickly discover that they both are great admirers of the early 19th-century writer Max von Schwedenow who was born in the area.
Why it matches: Similar story and style
Like Lars and something else?
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Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Lars?
The closest matches to Lars are The Lives of Others (2006), Torn Curtain (1966) and Funeral in Berlin (1966). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Lars?
Start with The Lives of Others (2006), the closest match to Lars.
What is the highest-rated movie like Lars?
M (1931), rated 8.1/10 by 2,594 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Lars?
Exterritorial (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Lars?
Yes: The Lives of Others (2006), Barbara (2012) and Exterritorial (2025).
How are movies similar to Lars chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Lars, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.