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. Among ARTE’s finest offerings are Mapping the World and arte 360° Reportage, which debuted in 1990 and 1999, respectively. Explore our list of the top rated shows up to date from November 2025 that includes over 20 unique series.

  • 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

  • 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.

  • 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

  • ARTE Re:
    ARTE Re: (2017)6.8

  • Berlin Live
    Berlin Live (2011)6.0

    Bands perform in Berlin's legendary club TRAFO, the concrete temple music.

  • Brecht
    Brecht (2019)5.3

    East Berlin, 1956. Bertolt Brecht, revolutionary of the theater and poet of the state, looks back: his exploits as a teenager during the World War I; his romantic adventures during the twenties; the escape of the Nazi regime; the return from exile. The life of a timeless classic, a class fighter, an indefatigable free spirit, a committed artist.

  • Xenius
    Xenius (2009)4.0

  • Paare
    Paare (2015)3.5

  • Gier
    Gier (2010)3.0

    An employee of a real estate company falls for an impostor.

  • 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.