The Best TV Shows on ARTE

Every ARTE Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Our curated list, current as of December 2025, showcases over 20 of ARTE’s highest-rated series. Among ARTE’s finest offerings are Mapping the World and arte 360° Reportage, which debuted in 1990 and 1999, respectively. From 1990 through to 2024, ARTE has accumulated a diverse collection of over 20 television shows.

  • 42 – The Answer to Almost Everything
    42 – The Answer to Almost Everything (2021)9.5

    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

  • House of Glass
    House of Glass (2024)8.1

    The slow descent into family hell. Four brothers and sisters get together for the wedding of their youngest daughter. The atmosphere, initially joyful, grows heavier as old family grudges resurface.

  • 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

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

    Stories of extraordinary lives and extraordinary lands across the globe.

  • A Very Secret Service
    A Very Secret Service (2015)7.6

    At the height of the Cold War in 1960, André Merlaux joins the French Secret Service and contends with enemies both foreign and bureaucratic.

  • 3x Manon
    3x Manon (2014)7.5

    After going before the judge for the third time, 15-year old Manon is placed in a reform centre for six months. Challenged by her own uncontrollable temper, and the bureaucracy of the institution, will this be Manon’s last chance at redemption?

  • 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

  • Ingo Thiel
    Ingo Thiel (2017)6.9

  • ARTE Re:
    ARTE Re: (2017)6.8

  • Xenius
    Xenius (2009)4.0

  • H24: 24 Hours, 24 Women, 24 Stories
    H24: 24 Hours, 24 Women, 24 Stories (2021)3.6

    Twenty-four short films by 24 female writers, performed by 24 women actors, all based on women’s real life experiences of sexism, harassment, and violence. A diversity of female voices and talent from across Europe come together for a series that tackles head-on the everyday brutality experienced by women.

  • 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.