The Best TV Shows on ARTE

Every ARTE Show Ranked From Best To Worst

Check out the most acclaimed shows on ARTE, with a catalog of over 20 series updated for July 2026. A broadcaster of distinction, ARTE has aired more than 20 shows between 1990 and 2025. Highlighting ARTE’s quality programming, Mapping the World and 360° Reportage stand out, premiering in 1990 and 1999.

  • Karambolage
    Karambolage (N/A)10.0

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

  • 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)8.7

    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)8.3

    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

  • 360° Reportage
    360° Reportage (1999)7.5

    Stories of extraordinary lives and extraordinary lands across the globe.

  • In Wahrheit
    In Wahrheit (2017)7.5

    Crime lurks in the Saarland. Thankfully, Detective Judith Mohn and her colleague Freddy are always on hand to apprehend criminals of every kind. In their first case, the murder of a prostitute leads them into the trucking world.

  • 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)6.9

    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.

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

    Discover Europe in all its diversity of viewpoints

  • Les saisons
    Les saisons (2025)6.3

  • Berlin Live
    Berlin Live (2011)6.0

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

  • 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.

  • Arte Journal
    Arte Journal (2010)N/A

  • Square
    Square (2012)N/A

  • TWIST
    TWIST (2020)N/A