
Thorsten Merten
Actor · b. 1963 · Ruhla, Germany
Thorsten Merten (born December 4, 1963, in Ruhla) is a German actor. Thorsten Merten originally intended to become a journalist and initially worked as a trainee at the newspaper *Das Volk*. After completing his military service, he underwent acting training from 1986 to 1990 at the "Ernst Busch" Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, where he attended the newly established cabaret department and graduated with a diploma in cabaret performance. This was followed by engagements at various theaters both at home and abroad, including the Théâtre Vidy in Lausanne, the Staatstheater Schwerin, the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, the Volksbühne Berlin, and the Deutsches Theater Berlin. For his stage work, he was awarded the Conrad Ekhof Prize in 1999. His notable stage roles include McMurphy in *One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*, the Ghost in *Hamlet*, as well as roles in *Ivanov*, *Prometheus*, and *Sonnenallee*. In 2024, he played the role of operations manager Kuckuck in the operetta *Messeschlager Gisela* at the Komische Oper Berlin. Merten gained his first experience in front of the camera in 1992 in Andreas Dresen's film *Stilles Land*. He achieved his breakthrough in 2001 with the tragicomedy *Halbe Treppe* (Grill Point), also directed by Dresen. Since then, he has appeared regularly in both feature films and television productions. Merten also gained recognition through roles in *Wilsberg*, *Afrika, mon amour*, *Bella Block*, *Helen Dorn*, *Donna Leon*, and numerous episodes of *Tatort*. From 2013 to 2021, he played the role of precinct chief Stich in the Weimar-based *Tatort* series. Since 2009, he has portrayed Chief Inspector—later Police Commissioner—Martin Fichte in the ZDF series *Spreewaldkrimi*. He has also played lead roles in other productions, including *Silvi* and *Fremdkörper*. In 2021, he received the German Film Award for his supporting role in *Curveball – Wir machen die Wahrheit*. Furthermore, Merten came up with the idea for the Netflix series *Das letzte Wort*, in which he appeared alongside Anke Engelke.
Movies24
Movie5.5DramaIn 2012 German Bundespraesident Christian Wulff declares his resignation in the great hall of Bellevue Palace. At the side of his wife, he had to face the pressure of the media for 68 days while struggling for office of head of state of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Der Rücktritt
2014 · 2 votes
Movie5.9DramaViolin teacher Anna Bronsky detects remarkable talent in a student, Alexander. Anna becomes obsessed with mentoring him, neglecting her family and spiralling under mounting pressure. As her fixation overtakes her, all is staked on exam day.
Movie6.5ComedyMicha unwittingly becomes a German hero when a journalist portrays him as the mastermind behind the mass exodus from East Germany.
Movie6.3ComedyOn a Friday afternoon, there was an unexpected knock on the door of the staff room of a city high school. An ambitious father is willing to go to extremes to get his son admitted to high school. The six teachers who are still at school so shortly before the start of the weekend now have to find out the hard way. After some unexpected twists and embarrassing revelations, true abysses open up for everyone involved...
Movie5.5FamilyAdventureClumsy peculiar pupil Alfons Zitterbacke dreams of being an astronaut and wreaks havoc anywhere he goes but against all odds wants to proof everyone who is teasing him wrong especially his father who wants him to be more of a 'normal' kid.
Movie7.1ComedyDramaAlthough he already has searched Iraq unsuccessfully for weapons of mass destruction as a member of a UN mission, German bio-weapons expert Arndt Wolf is still obsessed with the idea that Saddam Hussein is hiding something. Nobody around him is interested in this topic any more. This changes abruptly when an Iraqi asylum seeker claims to have been involved in the manufacture of chemical weapons. The German Federal Intelligence Service summons Dr. Wolf to ascertain the legitimacy of the claims made by the informant, who has been given the code name “Curveball”.
Movie6.0DramaHistoryIn 1944, a group of high command officers plot an attempt against Hitler, and one of the leaders of the conspiracy, Stauffenberg, goes to a meeting with the Fuhrer in charge of exploding the place. However, Hitler survives and the officers are executed. This unsuccessful operation was called "Valkyrie Operation", and this realistic movie discloses this true event.
Movie7.0WarDramaIn Berlin 1942, Hilde is a member of an anti-Nazi group. She falls in love with another member, Hans. The two spend a summer together until they get caught by the Gestapo and Hilde is imprisoned, eight months pregnant.
Movie6.4DramaWalter is a 60-year-old removal man for forced evictions. He recognizes in one of the tenants about to be evicted his estranged son, Jan. In order to help Jan, Walter has to confront not only his crooked boss but also his own past.
Atlas
2018 · 28 votes
Movie6.2DramaRomanceBased on Michel Houellebecq's controversial novel, Atomised (aka The Elementary Particles) focuses on Michael and Bruno, two very different half-brothers and their disturbed sexuality. After a chaotic childhood with a hippie mother only caring for her affairs, Michael, a molecular biologist, is more interested in genes than women, while Bruno is obsessed with his sexual desires, but mostly finds his satisfaction with prostitutes. But Bruno's life changes when he gets to know the experienced Christiane. In the meantime, Michael meets Annabelle, the love of his youth, again.
Movie7.0FamilyFantasyActually, Bibi had imagined her school internship would be completely different. Because she missed the scheduled start date, she has to fill in as a museum attendant for two weeks instead. While her friend Marita is doing her internship with the police and Florian is working for the Neustädter Zeitung, it initially seems like Bibi is in for a rather boring time. That changes abruptly when an extremely valuable music box disappears from the museum...
Bibi Blocksberg - Die total verhexte Zeitreise
2026 · 1 votes
Movie7.3DramaComedyA lighthearted look at the opening of the border crossing of Bornholmer Straße in Berlin from the point of view of the confused border guards.
Movie6.8DramaOn 24th August 1992 in the eastern German city of Rostock, a rampaging mob, to the applause and cheering of more than 3,000 bystanders, besieged and set fire to a residential building containing, among others, more than 120 Vietnamese men, women, and children on what has since become known as "The Night of the Fire." The riots became a symbol of xenophobia in the just-reunited Germany. This film recounts the incident from the perspectives of three very different characters.
Movie6.0DramaNora is fourteen and lives with her parents in a quiet Berlin suburb. She is a romantic introvert who spends her day retreated into her own enchanted dreamworld. Her parents, Anette and Uwe, are busy trying to handle reality; both are wrestling with unrealized hopes and dreams along with the added troubles caused by Anette's return to her studies and Uwe's struggling business. When Thomas, a former lover of Anette's and his family move in next door, the already fragile foundations of Nora's family are rocked.
Movie5.0TV MovieRomanceActually, the young Berlin doctor Jan Büchner wanted to go directly to the Baltic Sea for a week. But a detour forces him to drive over land. And then his car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, just behind a small town called Marienhagen. The residents of Marienhagen take care of Jans Wohl and make the stay as pleasant as possible. A comedy about rural doctors and people who fight for their pride and self-respect and take their destiny in their own hands in their own hands.
Auf Doktor komm raus
2010 · 1 votes
Movie6.6DramaComedyJust before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the birthday celebrations of an East German family turn into a tragicomical moment of political and personal breakdown.
Movie7.3HistoryDramaTaking place at the Concentration camp Buchenwald at the end of March 1945, prisoner Hans Pippig discovers in a carrying case of an incoming prisoner a Jewish child. If reported the three-year-old is sure to die. On the other hand, a violation of the rules of the camp would threaten the long prepared uprising of the concentration camp prisoners against the SS.
Movie7.4ComedyRomance17-year-old Cyril is funny, smart and an all-round good guy. Just his somewhat overlarge nose spoils the picture. On a school trip to Berlin with Roxy, a stunning new classmate, Cyril is not the only one taken with her. Benno, the class Casanova has his eye on the girl too and makes a nasty wager. Roxy is more interested in the introverted Rick, who is not only shy but also slow. Cyril hastens with his spoken word skills to Rick's aid, and falls head over heels in love with Roxy himself. So whose brave heart will win the fair lady?
Movie6.4DramaComedyOn a beautiful spring day, a small village full of eccentric characters wake up to hear Selma has had a premonition: she dreamt of a rare animal again – an okapi. All the village knows this means someone is about to die. Selma’s granddaughter, 11-year-old Luise, and her best friend Martin look on as fears of being the victim of the prophecy throw the village into a frenzy of confusion. But when the premonition comes true, it is young Luise’s world that is suddenly turned upside down. Ten years on from the event that changed her life, Luise lives a quiet life working in a bookstore, until the arrival of an unexpected guest enables her to rediscover how powerful and life-giving love can be.
Movie6.7DramaWarIn the historic Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, despite the cruel war that has been raging since 2014 between the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and the Ukrainian government, people try to survive in the rotten heart of chaos, where violence disguises itself as peace, propaganda becomes univocal truth and hatred reigns in the name of love.
Movie6.5HistoryTV MovieLeipzig, December 1734: Christmas brings the Bach family together. The first snow has fallen and the children Gottfried and Elisabeth are delighted about the arrival of their older brothers Friedemann and Emanuel. The Thomaskantor has retired to his music room. Anna Magdalena supports her husband, as there are only a few days left and his latest work, the six-part "Christmas Oratorio", must be finished on time. It is awaited with suspicion by the city council and the gentlemen of the consistory, who have long found Bach's waywardness a thorn in their side and fear that, after the premiere of the St. Matthew Passion a few years earlier, the St. Thomas Church will once again be filled with "operatic" music. With the oratorio, Johann Sebastian Bach hopes that he will finally become court composer in Dresden. And, as always, he demands that all members of the family join forces to help him. But differences of opinion are increasingly delaying the completion of Bach's most famous work.
Movie6.8DramaFrank and Simone have fulfilled a dream and live with their two children in a row house in the suburbs. They are a happy couple, until the day Frank is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. The family is suddenly confronted with death.
Movie5.6DramaAfter 14 years of prison Nabil is released and thrown back into his life.
In Berlin wächst kein Orangenbaum
2020 · 9 votes
Movie6.0DramaRomanceWolfgang follows a ransom note from his supposed illegal kidney donor Irina back to Istanbul, the city which he would love to erase from memory. Donor and recipient collide and struggle for a fair solution after which there is a bitter new beginning
Series24
TV6.2DramaCrimeTatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.
TV4.1CrimeSOKO Kitzbühel is an Austrian television series produced by ORF and ZDF. It is a spin-off of the German crime series SOKO 5113. It is set in the renowned Tyrolean tourist centre of Kitzbühel. The production company "beo-Film" has produced the show since 2001. The German abbreviation SOKO stands for Sonderkommission, "special commission", a task force with specific duties.
TV6.4CrimeThe SOKO Köln investigates the cathedral city with humor and often with hard work. Their cases take them into a variety of environments, from the Cologne clique to the terraced housing estates on the outskirts of the city.
SOKO Köln
2003 · 8 votes
TV6.3CrimePolizeiruf 110 is a long-running German language detective television series. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic, and after the dissolution of Fernsehen der DDR the series was picked up by ARD. It was originally created as a counterpart to the West German series Tatort, and quickly became a public favorite.
Polizeiruf 110
1971 · 26 votes
TV5.9CrimeDramaSOKO 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 Leipzig
2001 · 20 votes
TV5.2Talk ShowRiverboat
1992 · 4 votes
TV5.8CrimeAction & AdventureKüstenwache 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.
Küstenwache
1997 · 6 votes
TV7.7DramaCrimeBeneath the decadence of 1929 Berlin, lies an underworld city of sin. Police investigator Gereon Rath has been transferred from Cologne to the epicenter of political and social changes in the Golden Twenties.
Babylon Berlin
2017 · 416 votes
TV5.8CrimeDramaShows the interaction between Hamburg police officers and paramedics.
TV4.5CrimeDer 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.
Der Kriminalist
2006 · 6 votes
TV4.9CrimeSOKO Donau is an Austrian television series.
TV5.4CrimeDer Staatsanwalt
2005 · 8 votes
TV3.7CrimeWolffs Revier is a German television series.
Wolffs Revier
1992 · 7 votes
- TV7.2CrimeDrama
Im Namen des Gesetzes
1994 · 4 votes
TV5.0DramaCrimeThe unlikely police pair Verena Berthold and Otto Garber are part of a special task force investigating organized crime in Berlin. He comes from the east, she from the west of Berlin. He's a redneck, she's from a better background. This causes conflict. Over time, things start to sizzle between the two. Their team includes the agile German-Turkish Yücsel and the sluggish Georg, who, like Verena and Otto, are constantly bickering. The department manager is Lothar Reddemann. Sputnik is a former colleague of Otto's from the People's Police and is constantly coming up with new business ideas for stores and pubs where the team meets.
Ein starkes Team
1994 · 11 votes
TV3.9DramaDie Kanzlei
2015 · 7 votes
TV5.4CrimeDramaLetzte Spur Berlin
2012 · 7 votes
TV7.8DramaCrimeGeorg Wilsberg is an antiquarian in Münster. He used to be a lawyer but lost his license. Since then he has been working as a private detective. The always clammy Wilsberg urgently needs this income. In addition, he depends on the support of his friends, especially because of the car.
Wilsberg
1995 · 23 votes
TV4.8CrimeStubbe – Von Fall zu Fall is a German crime detective television series starring Wolfgang Stumph as detective Stubbe. It is being broadcast on ZDF, the second German public television channel since 1995.
Stubbe – Von Fall zu Fall
1995 · 3 votes
TV1.0CrimeStolberg is a German detective television series, starring chief inspector Martin Stolberg. The series is more serious and less flashy than other contemporary German detective series.
Kommissar Stolberg
2006 · 2 votes
TV4.6DramaCrimeBella Block is a long-running German detective television series starring Hannelore Hoger, first broadcast in 1994 on ZDF. In 2010 the 30th series was produced.
Bella Block
1993 · 9 votes
TV6.3CrimeFirst Police Chief Inspector Vera Lanz, a Munich police detective, attempts to balance her professional and private life.
Die Chefin
2012 · 6 votes
TV7.3CrimeDramaMurder, Venice, relationships...it's a delicious concoction in the hands of crime novelist Donna Leon. Venice provides the backdrop for the lush film versions of the bestselling novels, which features the indelible Commissario Guido Brunetti, canal boat rides instead of car chases, fine cuisine and crime investigations in one of Europe’s most beautiful locations.
Donna Leon
2000 · 11 votes
TV6.8CrimeKDD - Kriminaldauerdienst
2007 · 5 votes