Movies like Je suis Karl (2021)
The best movies like Je suis Karl (2021) are She Walks in Darkness (2025), The Lives of Others (2006) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008). If Je suis Karl hooked you with its drama and thriller, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedThe Lives of Others (2006)8.0/10 from 4,357 votes
- NewestShe Walks in Darkness (2025)Released 2025
- In GermanThe Lives of Others (2006)Also in German
She Walks in Darkness (2025)
A young agent leaves everything behind to pose as a member of ETA, risking her life to uncover the terrorists' hideouts in the south of France.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe 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: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisThe Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)
When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader. Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin, they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisThe Wave (2008)
A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Worth the HypeMovies like thisTwo Lives (2012)
Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSystem Crasher (2019)
Wherever 9-year-old Benni ends up, she is expelled. She has become what child protection services call a “system crasher.” But she is not looking to change her ways, and has one goal: go back home to her mother. When anger management trainer Micha is hired to help, suddenly there is hope.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlame Game (2019)
Martin Behrens is a Middle East expert for the German intelligence agency BND. He obtains information leading to a U.S. drone strike on a wanted terrorist in Zahiristan. A few days later, there's a terrorist attack on a restaurant – the video claiming responsibility calls it payback for the drone strike. Freelance journalist Aurice, with whom Martin was having an affair, is among the victims – she was investigating corruption at the heart of the BND. Martin soon has to realize that in a world where big corporations profit from arms deals as well as from homeland security contracts, good and evil are sometimes hard to tell apart.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies 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: Fans watch both · both thriller & drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBlack Island (2021)
The dark secrets of a seemingly peaceful island threaten to swallow up an orphaned student when he grows close to a mysterious new teacher.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisThe Last Execution (2021)
The ambitious scientist Franz Walter doesn't hesitate when he is promised a professorship at the university. He immediately accepts, pledges absolute loyalty to the system and agrees to work for the GDR's foreign intelligence service until he can take up his new position. Together with his colleague Dirk, he is sent on foreign assignments to West Germany. Franz soon has to use blackmail to get innocent people to talk. But his superiors go even further: GDR refugees and their relatives are targeted to be psychologically destroyed, forged letters, medical diagnoses, surveillance and wiretapping are on the agenda. However, this is more than Franz can bear: he feels powerless and increasingly isolates himself. When he then decides to steal secret documents for a later defection to the West, this results in an unfortunate chain reaction leading to his arrest and ultimately to his execution...
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisNever Look Away (2018)
German artist Kurt Barnert has escaped East Germany and now lives in West Germany, but is tormented by his childhood under the Nazis and the GDR regime.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies 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: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSixty Minutes (2024)
Desperate to keep custody of his daughter, a mixed martial arts fighter abandons a big match and races across Berlin to attend her birthday party.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisGoodbye Berlin (2016)
Maik, a fourteen-year-old teenager, sets out on a road trip during summertime with Tschick, a new classmate, in a stolen car. The two share life changing experiences during the eventful journey.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this24 Days (2014)
When Ilan Halimi is kidnapped for ransom because Jewish and supposedly rich, his family and the police start a race against time to save him from the tortures of the "gang of barbarians".
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLore (2012)
After being abandoned by their Nazi parents at the end of World War II, five German siblings embark on a harrowing journey across their war-torn country. Led by the eldest, 14 year-old Lore, the children are forced to confront their parents’ actions and the reality of a new world.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisYella (2007)
A young East German woman leaves her controlling husband/business partner and relocates to a West German city to start anew as an accountant, but he soon catches up with her.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
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: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Third War (2021)
After completing his military training, young Léo, a taciturn soldier with family problems and secret addictions, is assigned to one of the units that patrol the streets of Paris in search of possible terrorist threats as part of Operation Sentinelle.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
SnoozefestMovies like thisWe Are Young. We Are Strong. (2014)
On 24th August 1992 in the eastern German city of Rostock, a rampaging mob, to the applause and cheering of more than 3,000 bystanders, besieged and set fire to a residential building containing, among others, more than 120 Vietnamese men, women, and children on what has since become known as "The Night of the Fire." The riots became a symbol of xenophobia in the just-reunited Germany. This film recounts the incident from the perspectives of three very different characters.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Wave (1981)
A teacher conducts an experiment in an American high school where students learn how easy it is to be seduced by the same social forces which led to the horrors of Nazi Germany.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTough Enough (2006)
From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCombat Girls (2011)
Marisa, a 20-year-old German girl, hates foreigners, Jews, cops, and everyone she finds guilty for the decline of her country. She provokes, drinks, fights and her next tattoo will be a portrait of Adolf Hitler. But Marisa's convictions begin to crumble when she meets a young Afghan refugee, and she learns that the black and white principles of her gang are not the only way.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisStereo (2014)
Erik has is own motorbike workshop in a sleepy little town. He may have the telling word ‘scoundrel’ tattooed onto his lower arm but he nonetheless creates an impression of a well-behaved average Joe. His relationship with his girlfriend Julia is going well and her daughter Linda is very fond of her new Dad. But then all of a sudden the mysterious Henry appears and begins following him about like a sinister shadow. The more Erik tries to shake off his diabolical guest the more Henry intrudes into his life. But then when a violent gangster named Keitel enters the fray and threatens not only Erik but Julia and Linda, Erik’s seemingly ideal world begins to run off the rails.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisCut Off (2018)
A coroner finds a capsule in the head of a heavily mutilated corpse, containing a phone number and single word: the name of his daughter.
Why it matches: Fans watch both · both thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Silence (2010)
13-year-old Sinikka vanishes on a hot summer night. Her bicycle is found in the exact place where a girl was killed 23 years ago. The dramatic present forces those involved in the original case to face their past.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWatch on the Rhine (1943)
On the eve of World War II, the German Kurt Müller, his American-born wife Sara, and their three children, having lived in Europe for years, visit Sara's wealthy mother near Washington, DC. Kurt secretly works for the anti-Nazi resistance. A visiting Romanian count, becoming aware of this, seeks to blackmail him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama & thriller
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisMagpie (2024)
A couple's lives are thrown into disarray when their daughter is cast opposite a controversial major star.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both thriller & drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like this
Like Je suis Karl and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Je suis Karl?
The closest matches to Je suis Karl are She Walks in Darkness (2025), The Lives of Others (2006) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Je suis Karl?
People who watched Je suis Karl most often go on to She Walks in Darkness (2025), The Lives of Others (2006) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008).
What is the highest-rated movie like Je suis Karl?
The Lives of Others (2006), rated 8.0/10 by 4,357 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Je suis Karl?
She Walks in Darkness (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there German movies like Je suis Karl?
Yes: The Lives of Others (2006), The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008) and The Tunnel (2001).
How are movies similar to Je suis Karl chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Je suis Karl, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.