The Best TV Shows on ARTE

Every ARTE Show Ranked From Best To Worst

From 1990 through to 2021, ARTE has accumulated a diverse collection of over 20 television shows. Premiering in 1990 and 1999, Mapping the World and arte 360° Reportage are among ARTE’s most celebrated shows. As of February 2026, our compilation of ARTE’s top-rated series boasts over 20 unique shows.

  • Cuisines des terroirs
    Cuisines des terroirs (2001)10.0

    A sensual approach to culinary art "on the ground", meeting farmers, winegrowers, restaurateurs and cooks, where gastronomy and the art of living have their roots.

  • 42: The Answer to Almost Everything
    42: The Answer to Almost Everything (2021)9.6

    What would we be without mucus? Can we live on water? How much does life weigh? Finding out the answers is the aim of ARTE's new science show. In a nod to Douglas Adams's "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", where the figure 42 is the ultimate answer to all questions, 42 tries to provide the answers.

  • Mapping the World
    Mapping the World (1990)8.6

    Then complex world of geopolitics broken down into ten minute, bite-sized chunks. You'll never sound uninformed at the dinner table ever again.

  • mare TV
    mare TV (2001)8.5

  • Through the Night with...
    Through the Night with... (2002)8.0

    Durch die Nacht mit … is a German documentary film television series produced by ZDF for Franco-German television channel ARTE. Locations are mainly in France or Germany. The title of the French version is Au cœur de la nuit. Two Celebrities spend an filmed evening together. One of them is the host who sets the location and the program. There is no moderator.

  • With the Train Through...
    With the Train Through... (2006)8.0

  • Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie
    Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie (2007)7.7

    A two-part television film by UFA Fernsehproduktion about Jutta Gallus, who peaceful protested against the SED dictatorship in the GDR.

  • arte 360° Reportage
    arte 360° Reportage (1999)7.6

    Stories of extraordinary lives and extraordinary lands across the globe.

  • 14: Diaries of the Great War
    14: Diaries of the Great War (2014)7.6

    When war broke out in Europe in 1914, most people thought the conflict would be over by Christmas; they could not imagine how wrong they were. An attack in Sarajevo ended up becoming a snowball that swept the world: a new kind of warfare had begun, waged with techniques and means never seen before. By November 1918, ten million people had died and the political map of the planet had been redrawn.

  • In Wahrheit
    In Wahrheit (2017)7.5

  • Charité
    Charité (2017)7.3

    Berlin, 1888. After penniless Ida’s life is saved at the Charité Hospital she must work off the treatment costs. While she becomes acquainted with the most brilliant physicians of this era at the world-famous hospital, the self-determined young woman discovers her passion for medicine.

  • Bad Banks
    Bad Banks (2018)7.3

    Ambitious Jana is confronted with the unscrupulous machinations of the world of finance. Her working life is determined by egotism, the pressure to succeed and machismo. She soon has to decide how far she is prepared to go for her career.

  • Too Young to Die
    Too Young to Die (2012)7.2

    Those who knew them best describe the sensational lives and premature deaths of iconic actors and musicians whose passing left a void in pop culture.

  • The Silence
    The Silence (2021)7.1

    Dramatic events unfold in Croatia and Ukraine. The first girl drowned, the second one died from a drug overdose. The main suspect in these deaths, however, soon turns out to be innocent - and dead too. While detective Vladimir and reporter Stribor struggle to solve these murders in Croatia, the niece of Olga, an Ukrainian philanthropist, goes missing in Kyiv.

  • Invitation au voyage
    Invitation au voyage (2017)7.0

  • RE: European Stories
    RE: European Stories (2017)6.8

    Discover Europe in all its diversity of viewpoints

  • Xenius
    Xenius (2009)4.0

  • Arte Journal
    Arte Journal (2010)N/A

  • Square
    Square (2012)N/A

  • Karambolage
    Karambolage (N/A)N/A

    Words, rituals, objects, references... Karambolage offers an amused comparative anthropology of the locals on both sides of the Rhine.