Overview

  • ALEXANDER THE GREAT

    Alexander the Great is undoubtedly one of the world’s most scintillating and simultaneously most controversial historical figures. He was the prototype of all conquerors, the perfect role model for those who aspired to power, fame, and honor on the battlefield – from Julius Caesar to Napoleon Bonaparte. At the age of 33, Alexander achieved what other powerful forces had not managed to achieve over generations – let alone as a single person: he had built one of the greatest empires of all times. His deeds were immortalized in numerous paintings, poems, and stories, and continue to inspire artists all over the world to this day.

  • BRENT SPAR WAR

    Brent Spar War tells the story of the battle between Greenpeace and oil giant Shell in 1995, when they wanted to drown a huge old oil platform into the North Sea, which attracted worldwide attention and led to a permanent increase in environmental awareness among consumers and corporations.

  • COLD WAR CABARET

    Berlin, 1960. In the lively four-sector city, world powers are armed to the teeth and inches away from starting World War Three. A cold and dirty war of the secret services is smoldering among the ruins and reconstruction, the outcome of which will decide who will make it first into space. The United States against the USSR, Shepard against Gagarin.

  • COLD WAR RADIO

    Dramatic true-life stories of how Cold War Radio helped win the Cold War through deceptive advertising, refugee radio broadcasting, music, humor, and fake news.

    The series focuses on the radio station founded in 1950 and its staff in Munich and New York, when Russia sets up satellite states all across Eastern Europe and CIA sets up a radio station that allow refugees to broadcast propaganda and rallying cries for freedom to their countrymen on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

    They face intimidation, blackmail, threats of kidnapping, bombings, murder attempts, vitriolic denunciations from state-controlled media behind the Iron Curtain, and spies. Each hourly episode using historical and fictional characters are full of danger, intrigue, black humor, romance, and surprising twists.

  • DOÑA GRACIA – LA SEÑORA – The Woman who defied the Inquisition

    Doña Gracia is an eight-part series about the true story of Doña Gracia Nasi, a Jewish noblewoman from Portugal in the 16th century. She is pursued by the Inquisition but refuses to convert to Catholicism.  In order to save the lives of thousands of Jews, she organizes an extensive network to bring people to safety. She is ultimately expelled from Portugal and makes an adventurous escape via Antwerp, where she was able to live in peace for a short time, and then via Aachen, Lyon, and Venice, before arriving in the capital of the Ottoman Empire – Constantinople.

  • DUEL OF BROTHERS

    In March 2016, the German-language TV movie “Duell der Brüder” was a big hit for RTL. The 120-minute movie tells the emotional and heroic story of the German Dassler dynasty: The story follows the success of the two brothers, Adolf and Rudi, as well as their successful partnership, the long-standing and bitter family feud, and, ultimately, the dramatic separation in 1948 – which is also the date when two global conglomerates – Adidas and Puma – were born.

  • ELLIS ISLAND – Stairs of Separation

    In the early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of impoverished European families are making their way to the Promised Land: America. Primarily Germans, Italians, Irishmen, Scandinavians, and Russians – in this case mainly Jews, arrive in large numbers, fleeing persecution but also in search of a better life. They encounter the overstretched and indeed corrupt bureaucrats on Ellis Island, who are responsible for issuing entry permits. The series touches an exceptionally current global issue.

  • FUGGER

    At a time when all power emanated from the nobility and the clergy, the Augsburg merchant and banker Jakob Fugger discovered an even greater power: the power of money. As a cunning investor and aggressive monopolist, through insider knowledge, speculation, bribery and huge loans, he puts himself in a position where rulers and popes come to depend on him. Jakob becomes the richest man of all time, the most powerful economic leader, the universally courted and feared financial emperor of Europe.

  • GOLDEN BOYS

    It is the largest bank failure in Europe since the Great Depression of 1932. It threatens to take a global corporation down with it. It is caused by the "golden boys", currency traders from the Herstatt Bank in Cologne. For years, they have made big profits for the bank from foreign currency speculation, but then, unchecked and with criminal intent, they decide to play for high stakes. The bank goes into the red by almost 500 million. In June 1974, the banking authorities close the Herstatt Bank in the middle of trading. The next day, hundreds of savers and mid-sized companies find the doors closed. Their savings are lost and many are ruined. The golden boys end up in jail apart from the main culprit. The owner of the bank, Hans Gerling, threatens to plunge his company into the abyss.

  • HATSHEPSUT – The Princess Who Would Be King

    A Deep Period series with fantasy elements. Female-Lead
    New Kingdom of Egypt, 1500 B.C.: A young androgynous princess challenges the divine order by being the first woman in the history of Egypt to not be satisfied with the role imposed on her as Great Royal Wife. In a world governed by men – and gods, she fights her adversaries to the top of her Empire and does everything to finally assert her right to the Pharaoh's throne. But first, she has to override her nephew, the rightful heir to the throne who refuses to be deprived of his power, especially by a woman who identifies as male.

  • MORBUS DEI

    Based on the bestselling European trilogy of the same name, the series Morbus Dei tells the breathtaking story of a terrifying disease that threatens the entire Habsburg Empire at the beginning of the 18th century. The story revolves around Johann List and Elisabeth Karrer, who have to fight for their love – a fight that takes them both from the remote, snowy villages of the Alps through secret abbeys, all the way to Vienna under the Inquisition and the battlefields of Turin – forever fleeing the dreaded disease and their persecutors.

  • MOST NOTORIOUS TYRANTS

    Notorious Tyrants tells the stories of some of the world’s worst oppressors. The first in the series is Caligula, who abused his power as Roman Emperor like no other, becoming a serious criminal and mass murderer.
    Other tyrants whose stories are told in the series include Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler, Qin Shi Huang, Montezuma, Genghis Khan, and Akhenaten.

  • PATRIA NOSTRA – The Foreign Legion in the Algerian War

    The miniseries is a coming of age story about young adults on the canvases of the terrible Algerian war of independence between 1960 and 1963, a three-front-war with several hundred thousand of casualties. A world of terror, executions, torture, kidnapping, raping, where young soldiers from different countries including Germans of the so called French Legion fought on the French side against Algerians citizens and underground fighters.

  • ROMEO AND JULIET IN BERLIN

    It starts off like a crime fiction drama: Jenny and Rami have gone missing. The fathers desperately search for the children in the park, among fighting dogs and drug dealers. They finally find the pair in the company of Matti, an apparently shadowy accordion player who takes his own musical path through Berlin’s lively and multicultural Neukölln district. Relieved, the fathers happily return to the barbecue, and the terrifying experience creates a bond of friendship between the Habibi and Müller families that continues from this day forth until the kids getting older and fall into love. But how long? The love between Rami and Jenny does not fit both families in the junk.

  • SCHINDERHANNES – King of the Underworld

    "I want to know, you see. Why one person should always be poor and the other not." "But the Lord God did not make us equal. There must be a place for everyone." Johannes Bückler (1779-1808) in conversation with his friend and fellow robber Carl Benzel.

    People worship him as a German Robin Hood, who robs the rich and helps the poor with his gangs. Few know the true face of the man who was born Johannes Bückler at the end of the eighteenth century.

    Even during his lifetime, his reputation is legendary, his criminal record endless, so too, apparently, his power. Schinderhannes becomes a powerful figure in a world without laws. When he is finally caught by the increasing efforts of the police under pressure from the French government led by Napoleon, his execution in Mainz becomes a mass spectacle watched by 30,000 onlookers. He is convicted of 130 offences.

    It is the story of an incredible rise and fall. To this day, Schinderhannes is regarded as the greatest robber in German history.

  • THE NIBELUNG SAGA

    The series is an adaptation of the epic German poem, The Song of the Nibelungs, is all about love, betrayal, murder ... and revenge. The story of Siegfried’s heroic deeds and Kriemhild‘s revenge is our national epic. It’s a story of courage and adventures, of eternal love, of envy and worship, of treason and loyalty and of terrible revenge - the Song of the Nibelungs is a poetic narrative from the emotional world of the Germans.