Popular searches:

The Best TV Shows on ZDF

Every ZDF Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Our curated list, current as of January 2025, showcases over 20 of ZDF’s highest-rated series. ZDF has over 20 shows broadcast from as early as 1948 and as recent as 2015. Bambi Awards and Die Drehscheibe represent the pinnacle of ZDF’s programming, launching in 1948 and 1964.

  • Bambi Awards
    Bambi Awards (1948)9.0

    The Bambi, often called the Bambi Award and stylised as BAMBI, is a German award presented annually by Hubert Burda Media to recognize excellence in international media and television to personalities in the media, arts, culture, sports, and other fields "with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public that year", both domestic and foreign. First held in 1948, it is the oldest media award in Germany. The trophy is named after Felix Salten's book Bambi, A Life in the Woods and its statuettes are in the shape of the novel's titular fawn character. They were originally made of porcelain until 1958, when the organizers switched to using gold, with the casting done by the art casting workshop of Ernst Strassacker in Süßen.

  • Maybrit Illner
    Maybrit Illner (1999)8.0

  • Löwenzahn
    Löwenzahn (1981)7.8

    Each 30 minute episode is dedicated to a separate issue or theme and consists mainly of related short featurettes, which explain, explore and educate how things of everyday life and even complex systems work. It spans a wide variety of topics from technology and industry to something as mundane as how the postal service works.

  • Siebenstein
    Siebenstein (1988)7.0

  • Die Rosenheim-Cops
    Die Rosenheim-Cops (2002)6.4

  • SOKO Wismar
    SOKO Wismar (2004)6.1

  • SOKO Stuttgart
    SOKO Stuttgart (2009)6.1

    The SOKO Stuttgart team investigates analytically and with sensitivity in the likeable state capital. The exciting cases of the series lead them to bizarre crime scenes and to different milieus.

  • Die Drehscheibe
    Die Drehscheibe (1964)6.0

  • Morgenmagazin
    Morgenmagazin (1992)6.0

  • Hamburg Dockland
    Hamburg Dockland (2007)6.0

    Shows the interaction between Hamburg police officers and paramedics.

  • SOKO Leipzig
    SOKO Leipzig (2001)5.9

    SOKO Leipzig is a German police procedural television programme, a spin-off of the earlier German police programme SOKO 5113. It was first broadcast on 31 January 2001, on German television channel ZDF. On 12 November 2008, the first part of a two-part crossover between SOKO Leipzig and British police procedural The Bill was aired, with the same version being shown on both ZDF and British television channel ITV1.

  • SOKO München
    SOKO München (1978)5.5

    SOKO 5113 is a long-running German police procedural television series. It was first aired in 1978 on 2 January. SOKO is an abbreviation of the term "Sonderkommission" in German.

  • Coast Guard
    Coast Guard (1997)5.4

    Küstenwache is a German television series that tells the fictionalized adventures of a unit of Federal Coast Guard officers off the German coast of the Baltic Sea.

  • Bettys Diagnose
    Bettys Diagnose (2015)5.3

  • Der Kriminalist
    Der Kriminalist (2006)5.2

    Der Kriminalist is a German television series produced by Monaco Film Hamburg, subsidiary of Odeon Film. Directors during the first season were Sherry Hormann and Torsten C. Fischer, during the second: Thomas Jahn, Jobst Oetzmann and Torsten C. Fischer.

  • Markus Lanz
    Markus Lanz (2008)5.0

    TV presenter Markus Lanz invites prominent guests and experts from all areas of public life to his colourful talk show. As a rule, there are four guests, introduced individually to contribute their personal experiences to the topics.

  • Vienna Crime Squad
    Vienna Crime Squad (2005)4.5

    SOKO Donau is an Austrian television series.

  • Volle Kanne
    Volle Kanne (1999)4.4

  • Unser Charly
    Unser Charly (1995)4.3

    Unser Charly is a German television series.

  • ZDF-Fernsehgarten
    ZDF-Fernsehgarten (1986)1.7