Movies like The Lives of Others: 20 to watch next
If you loved The Lives of Others (2006) — a drama and thriller film directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck — these 20 movies are the closest matches.
The first picks are what fans of The Lives of Others most often go on to watch; the rest share its genres and themes like berlin, germany, government and corruption. 5 of them are streaming in India right now — each entry shows where.
Where to watch The Lives of Others →·Get picks for your whole taste →
- 1
Funeral in Berlin 1966★ 6.4
Shares: Thriller
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.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 2
Two Lives 2012★ 6.6
Shares: Drama, Thriller
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?
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 3
Alone in Berlin 2016★ 6.7
Shares: Thriller, Drama
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.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 4
The Tunnel 2001★ 7.2
Shares: Drama, Thriller
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.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 5
Balloon 2018★ 7.5
Shares: Thriller, Drama
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.
Stream in India on Amazon MX Player, Amazon Prime Video Free with Ads
- 6
The Mask of Dimitrios 1944★ 7.1
Shares: Drama
A mystery writer is intrigued by the tale of notorious criminal Dimitrios Makropolous, whose dead body was found washed up on the shore in Istanbul. He decides to follow the career of Dimitrios around Europe, in order to learn more about the man. Along the way he is joined by the mysterious Mr. Peters, who has his own motivation.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 7
The Bourne Supremacy 2004★ 7.3
Shares: Drama, Thriller
A CIA operation to purchase classified Russian documents is blown by a rival agent, who then shows up in the sleepy seaside village where Bourne and Marie have been living. The pair run for their lives and Bourne, who promised retaliation should anyone from his former life attempt contact, is forced to once again take up his life as a trained assassin to survive.
Stream in India on Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
- 8
Despair 1978★ 6.5
Shares: Drama, Thriller
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.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 9
The Last Execution 2021★ 6.2
Shares: Drama, Thriller
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...
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 10
23 1998★ 6.8
Shares: Drama, Thriller
The movie's plot is based on the true story of a group of young computer hackers from Hannover, Germany. In the late 1980s the orphaned Karl Koch invests his heritage in a flat and a home computer. At first he dials up to bulletin boards to discuss conspiracy theories inspired by his favorite novel, R.A. Wilson's "Illuminatus", but soon he and his friend David start breaking into government and military computers. Pepe, one of Karl's rather criminal acquaintances senses that there is money in computer cracking - he travels to east Berlin and tries to contact the KGB.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 11
Retribution 2023★ 6.5
Shares: Thriller
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.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 12
Lola 1981★ 6.9
Shares: Drama
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.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 13
The Social Reckoning 2026★ 7.0
Shares: Drama, Thriller
Frances Haugen, a young Facebook engineer, enlists the help of Jeff Horwitz, a Wall Street Journal reporter, to go on a dangerous journey that ends up blowing the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 14
Rosenstrasse 2003★ 6.4
Shares: Drama
When Ruth's husband dies in New York, in 2000, she imposes strict Jewish mourning, which puzzles her children. A stranger comes to the house - Ruth's cousin - with a picture of Ruth, age 8, in Berlin, with a woman the cousin says helped Ruth escape. Hannah, Ruth's daughter engaged to a gentile, goes to Berlin to find the woman, Lena Fisher, now 90. Posing as a journalist investigating intermarriage, Hannah interviews Lena who tells the story of a week in 1943 when the Jewish husbands of Aryan women were detained in a building on Rosenstrasse. The women gather daily for word of their husbands. The film goes back and forth to tell Ruth and Lena's story. How will it affect Hannah?
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 15
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin 2024★ 6.8
Shares: Drama
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 16
Ministry of Fear 1944★ 6.9
Shares: Thriller
Stephen Neale is released into WWII England after two years in an asylum, but it doesn't seem so sane outside either. On his way back to London to rejoin civilization, he stumbles across a murderous spy ring and doesn't quite know to whom to turn.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now
- 17
Phoenix 2014★ 6.8
Shares: Drama
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.
Stream in India on MUBI, MUBI Amazon Channel
- 18
The House on Carroll Street 1988★ 6.0
Shares: Drama, Thriller
A reporter, fired after refusing to give names to a 1951 House Un-American Activities Committee, takes a part-time job as companion to an old lady. While working she overhears a noisy argument in the neighboring house, being conducted largely in German and involving her HUAC prosecutor. She begins to investigate, enlisting the help of the FBI Agent initially detailed to surveil her.
Stream in India on MGM Plus Amazon Channel
- 19
The Amateur 2025★ 6.9
Shares: Thriller
After his life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a London terrorist attack, a brilliant but introverted CIA decoder takes matters into his own hands when his supervisors refuse to take action.
Stream in India on JioHotstar
- 20
The Falcon and the Snowman 1985★ 6.4
Shares: Thriller, Drama
The true story of a disillusioned military contractor employee and his drug pusher childhood friend who became walk-in spies for the Soviet Union.
Not on subscription streaming in India right now