The Best TV Shows on ARTE

Every ARTE Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Discover the best of ARTE with our list of over 20 series, meticulously updated for June 2025. With its programming history stretching from 1990 to 2021, ARTE offers an impressive lineup of over 20 shows. Highlighting ARTE’s quality programming, Mapping the World and Sphinx – Secrets of the History stand out, premiering in 1990 and 1994.

  • 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)9.5

    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.

  • 360° - Die GEO Reportage
    360° - Die GEO Reportage (1999)7.6

  • 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.

  • Clash of Futures (1918-1939)
    Clash of Futures (1918-1939) (2018)7.2

    From the armistice of 1918, which marked the end of the First World War, to the declaration of war in September 1939, the beginning of the Second World War: an era during which there was an aspiration to create a new world, prosperous and at peace, but which provoked a new tragedy, seen through the destinies of thirteen people who were both actors and witnesses of the upheavals of the so-called inter-war period.

  • 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)6.2

  • Berlin Live
    Berlin Live (2011)6.0

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

  • Sphinx – Secrets of the History
    Sphinx – Secrets of the History (1994)4.0

    This German format is not a series properly speaking, as it has no permanent cast or script continuity, but presents each time a 45 minutes documentary, usually in part presented as a docudrama (not faction, as close to scientific knowledge as possible, but visually attractive), elaborating a specific historical theme, widely varied, often exotic in the sense of a far time (as far back as prehistoric times) and/or place (around the globe), although some episodes fit together well, chronologically or thematically, but always fit to be watched separately. Usually authentic locations are used, as well as scenes from and/or interviews about the scientific research it is based upon.

  • 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.

  • Paare
    Paare (2015)3.5

  • Square
    Square (2012)N/A

  • In the Americas
    In the Americas (2012)N/A

    A travelogue that explores the landscapes, people and histories of North and South America.