Movies Like The Lenz Papers

If you liked The Lenz Papers (1986), a drama and history movie directed by Dieter Berner, here are 20 movies with a similar feel, based on TMDB's recommendations. Each one links to its cast, trailer and where it's streaming.

1
Munich - The Edge of War (2021)
★ 6.9/10Also drama and history
At the tense 1938 Munich Conference, former friends who now work for opposing governments become reluctant spies racing to expose a Nazi secret.
2
Home from Home – Chronicle of a Vision (2013)
★ 7.8/10Also drama and history
Follow-up to the TV trilogy “Heimat”, this time for cinemas, set again in the fictional village Schabbach in the Hunsrück region of Rhineland-Palatinate.
3
Outlaws - For Greater Glory (2012)
★ 7/10Also history and drama
A chronicle of the Cristeros War (1926-1929), which was touched off by a rebellion against the Mexican government's attempt to secularize the country.
4
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
★ 7.1/10Also drama and history
Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him…
5
Nuremberg (2025)
★ 7.6/10Also history and drama
In postwar Germany, an American psychiatrist must determine whether Nazi prisoners are fit to go on trial for war crimes, and finds himself in a complex battle of intellect and ethics with Hermann Göring, Hitler's…
6
Nightwatching (2007)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and history
An extravagant, exotic and moving look at Rembrandt's romantic and professional life, and the controversy he created by the identification of a murderer in the painting The Night Watch.
7
Colonel Redl (1985)
★ 6.9/10Also drama and history
Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become…
8
Iron Jawed Angels (2004)
★ 6.8/10Also drama
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
9
The German Lesson (2019)
★ 6.5/10Also drama
In a small North German village a drama played out during and shortly after the Second World War about duty versus individual conscience and morality.
10
Uprising (2001)
★ 6.6/10Also drama
In the Warsaw ghetto in 1943, Jews rise against the Nazis.
11
Mr. Turner (2014)
★ 6.6/10Also history and drama
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
12
Carlos (2010)
★ 7/10Also drama and history
The story of Venezuelan revolutionary, Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who founded a worldwide terrorist organization and raided the OPEC headquarters in 1975 before being caught by the French police.
13
Until the End of the World (1991)
★ 6.7/10Also drama
In 1999, a woman's life is forever changed after she survives a car crash with two bank robbers, who enlist her help to take the money to a drop in Paris. On the way, she runs into another fugitive from the law — an…
14
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin (2024)
★ 6.7/10Also history and drama
As the world teeters on the brink of annihilation, Dietrich Bonhoeffer joins a deadly plot to assassinate Hitler, risking his faith and fate to save millions of Jews from genocide.
15
Origin (2023)
★ 6.2/10Also drama and history
While investigating the global phenomenon of caste and its dark influence on society, a journalist faces unfathomable personal loss and uncovers the beauty of human resilience.
16
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele (2025)
★ 6.6/10Also history and drama
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor at Auschwitz, escapes to South America to rebuild his life in hiding. Through the eyes of his son who finds him again, Mengele is confronted with…
17
The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)
★ 7/10Also drama and history
When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader…
18
The Brutalist (2024)
★ 6.9/10Also drama
When an innovative modern architect flees post-war Europe, he is given the opportunity to rebuild his legacy. Set during the dawn of the modern United States (in Pennsylvania), his wife joins him, and their lives are…
19
Rhinegold (2022)
★ 6.5/10Also history and drama
Xatar’s way from the ghetto to the top of the charts is as dramatic as it is daring. From the hell of an Iraqi jail, Giwar Hajabi emigrated to Germany as a young boy with his family in the mid-1980s and has to start…
20
Blood Ties (2013)
★ 6.1/10Also drama
Two brothers, on either side of the law, face off over organized crime in Brooklyn during the 1970s.