10 Best Movies and TV Shows to Learn German

The characters speak slowly and deliberately, which is unusual for a TV thriller. Every sentence is weighted with meaning, so you naturally pay attention to each word. The vocabulary leans toward family relationships, time, and science, and the same key phrases repeat across episodes. Because the plot is so gripping, you will rewatch scenes to understand the story, and that repetition is exactly what your brain needs.

This is a submarine war film, so the characters are literally trapped in a small space talking to each other for three hours. The dialogue is dense with military commands, technical vocabulary, and emotional outbursts. What makes it useful for advanced learners is the contrast between formal orders and casual crew banter. You hear how register shifts work in German under pressure.

The main character speaks to his bedridden mother in simple, caring sentences. The vocabulary is everyday stuff: food, TV, news, family. The pace is gentle, and the humor gives you context clues even when you miss a word. It is one of the few German films where you can follow along as a beginner without feeling lost.

Set in 1984 East Berlin, this film features a Stasi agent listening to private conversations through a wall. The dialogue is precise and measured, almost like a listening exercise by design. Characters choose their words carefully because they know they might be overheard. This restraint makes the German clearer than most films, and the emotional weight behind each line helps the words stick.

Set in 1920s Weimar Republic Berlin, this show throws you into a world of political intrigue, nightlife, and social upheaval. The German is formal and sometimes archaic, which is a challenge, but it also teaches you structures that still exist in modern formal writing. You will pick up vocabulary for politics, crime, and social class that news articles still use today.

Teenagers talking about the internet, school, relationships, and running a drug empire from a bedroom. The German is modern, fast, and full of slang that textbooks will never teach you. Words like "krass" (wild), "Alter" (dude), and "mega" pop up constantly. If you want to sound like a real young German speaker, this is your show.

Set at the University of Freiburg, this thriller gives you campus vocabulary, science terminology, and student life dialogue. The characters are university students and professors, so you hear both casual peer conversation and academic German. It is one of the few shows where you pick up words for lab equipment, biology, and university bureaucracy all at once.

This gritty crime series features Berlin street dialect, Turkish-German code-switching, and police jargon. The characters come from different social backgrounds, so you hear how class and ethnicity shape the way people speak German. It is messy and fast, but that is exactly how German sounds on the streets of Berlin. Not for beginners, but great for training your ear to handle real-world speech.

A dark comedy where Hitler wakes up in modern Berlin. The film mixes scripted scenes with real hidden-camera interactions with actual Germans on the street. You hear genuine unscripted German reactions alongside the actor's exaggerated formal speech. The contrast between old-fashioned oratory German and modern casual speech is a masterclass in how the language has evolved.

The film has very little dialogue compared to most movies. Lola runs, screams, and has short urgent conversations. The sentences are short and direct: "Hilf mir!" (Help me!), "Ich brauche Geld!" (I need money!). Because the same 20-minute scenario repeats three times with variations, you hear the same core phrases again and again. Perfect for absolute beginners who get overwhelmed by long dialogues.