15 Movies Like Sissi: The Fateful Years of an Empress

This episodic film is a close relative of Wolf Hartwig's schoolgirl report movies, made by the same people, in a similar style, around similar topics. However, this one specifically focuses on the coming-of-age aspects, to an extent that it also touches on delicate issues such as paedophilia.

Dance teacher and mother Nadja left her son Mario with her own mother when he was little. Now she has reappeared on his doorstep, seeking a closeness that knows fewer and fewer boundaries. An uncompromising film about family relationships.

Heidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.

A German Tiger tank crew is sent on a dangerous mission to rescue the missing officer Paul von Hardenburg from a top-secret bunker behind enemy lines. As they make their way through the lethal no-man's land, they must confront not only the enemy, but also their own fears and inner demons. Fueled by the Wehrmacht's methamphetamine, their mission increasingly becomes a journey into the heart of darkness.

Moritz follows a boyfriend to Berlin and is soon abandoned by him. Alone in the big city, he embarks on a journey through a wide range of queer experience. Only through a new circle of queer friends does he develop his own ideas of sexuality and masculinity, leading him to a clearer self-identity.

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

Lilli is suspicious of her sister's new fiance, but when an attractive stranger enters her life, she's suddenly distracted by the thralls of desire.

A German submarine hunts allied ships during the Second World War, but it soon becomes the hunted. The crew tries to survive below the surface, while stretching both the boat and themselves to their limits.

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.

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.

In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and advisers to fight to the last man. When the end finally does come, and Hitler lies dead by his own hand, what is left of his military must find a way to end the killing that is the Battle of Berlin, and lay down their arms in surrender.

A young Austrian girl is kidnapped and held in captivity for eight years. Based on the real-life case of Natascha Kampusch.

Antonia is a single mother who works as a hotel maid in Berlin. A normal hot summer day takes a dramatic turn when she crosses paths with a particular guest of the hotel, famous blind portrait painter Julius Pass.

In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.

In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.