Season 1
8 episodes Apr 4, 2024 7.5
Crooks
“One heist. Two crooks. Three cities.”
2024–2026
Returning Series • 2 Seasons • 14 Episodes
Overview
A priceless coin forces a retired safecracker and a two-bit gangster to work together, drawing them into daring heists and global criminal rivalries.
Seasons
2 listed- Status
- Returning Series
- Seasons
- 2 seasons
- Episodes
- 14 episodes
- First aired
- Apr 4, 2024
- Last aired
- Apr 14, 2026
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S2 E6 Catherine the Great (Apr 14, 2026)
Season 2
6 episodes Apr 14, 2026 7.4A priceless coin forces a retired safecracker and a two-bit gangster to work together, drawing them into daring heists and global criminal rivalries.
Cast
8 people
Reviews
5 min readThe Heist That Never Ends
I’ve seen enough heist stories to know the rhythm by now: the meticulous planning, the flawless execution, the brief moment of triumph—then the inevitable unraveling. Crooks, Netflix’s German-language crime thriller, knows this rhythm too. It just refuses to play by it. Instead, it turns the heist into a treadmill, a never-ending chase where the prize isn’t gold or glory but the sheer, exhausting momentum of survival.
And for a while, that’s enough.
The series follows two men bound by a single, priceless coin: one, a retired safecracker with the weary posture of a man who’s spent too many years hunched over locks; the other, a younger, hotheaded gangster whose idea of strategy is to shoot first and ask questions never. Their partnership is less a meeting of minds than a collision of survival instincts, and it’s this friction that gives Crooks its pulse. The show doesn’t so much build tension as it does maintain it, like a car engine left running in neutral—loud, vibrating, impossible to ignore.
What’s striking about Crooks isn’t the originality of its premise—heist stories are as old as crime itself—but the way it commits to its own chaos. The series sprawls across three cities (Berlin, Vienna, Bangkok), each with its own texture and threat level, but it never bothers to ground the viewer in geography or logic. Instead, it treats location like a mood ring: Berlin is all grit and graffiti, Vienna a gilded cage of old-world corruption, Bangkok a neon-lit labyrinth where every alleyway could be an exit or a trap.
The show doesn’t care if you can follow the map. It just wants you to feel the disorientation.
That disorientation extends to the plot itself, which lurches from one set piece to the next with the kind of reckless energy that’s either thrilling or infuriating, depending on your tolerance for narrative whiplash. There’s a scene in the first season where the two leads, Lau’s character Charly and Krutzler’s Mücke, find themselves in a high-speed chase through Vienna’s underground tunnels.
Audience Opinions
Audience 7.0/10
"A kinetic, character-driven heist thriller that is easy to binge, even as its logic and realism often fall apart."
Tight pacing, high tension, and the central partnership make the series an engaging ride, with several viewers calling it highly entertaining and easy to watch straight through. The European locations and direction earn praise, but the script is repeatedly called out for implausible twists, shallow research, and one-note side characters, latestnetflix.com argues, leading to a polarized mix of very high and very low personal ratings.
What viewers praise
- Compelling central duo The relationship and chemistry between the two leads are singled out as a key reason the story stays emotionally engaging.
- High tension and momentum Episodes move quickly with frequent cliffhangers and a sense of escalating danger that keeps viewers hooked.
- Dynamic direction Direction and staging receive praise for creating a vivid, punchy crime atmosphere that never feels dull.
- Striking European backdrop The use of Berlin, Vienna, Marseille and other locations adds color and gives the chase storyline a distinctive cross-border feel.
Common complaints
- Unconvincing plotting Reviewers frequently describe events and character choices as nonsensical or contrived, hurting believability.
- Shallow worldbuilding The criminal underworld is described as stylized rather than grounded, with details that feel insufficiently researched.
- Uneven supporting roles Some side characters are seen as thinly written, annoying, or stuck in clichés compared with the stronger leads.
- Polarizing overall quality A notable chunk of viewers rate it extremely low, calling it a waste of a good concept despite others finding it thrilling.
Recommended for
European crime thriller fans Heist and chase story lovers Fast-paced action series watchers German-language drama followers
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe Bode Museum coin still has not come home
Netflix's German heist series hangs off a real Berlin job. In March 2017, thieves used a ladder and a wheelbarrow to lift the Big Maple Leaf, a 100-kilogram Canadian gold coin, from the Bode Museum. Four men were later convicted. The coin itself never resurfaced, and German coverage has long assumed it was melted. Marvin Kren's Crooks, which arrived worldwide on April 4, 2024, latestnetflix.com argues, treats that vanished lump as the object that yanks a retired safecracker named Charly back into the trade. 
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The working title was Criminal. W&B Television, the Dark and 4 Blocks shop, produced it for Netflix. Kren created, showran, and directed with Benjamin Hessler and Georg Lippert on the scripts. Cuneyt Kaya directed three of the eight first-season episodes. Frederick Lau plays Charly, now a Berlin locksmith with a family he wants to keep. Christoph Krutzler plays Joseph, the Vienna clan driver who is supposed to haul the loot to Austria and instead gets glued to Charly after a shootout. Svenja Jung is Samira. Kida Khodr Ramadan is back with Lau and Kren, a 4 Blocks reunion German papers flagged on day one. Rapper Nimo, billed as Nima Yaghobi, plays Tarek Al-Walid. Netflix's own sell was blunt. One heist. Two crooks. Three cities. ,
It did the chart work the slate needed. ScreenRant later put season one's peak at No. 2 on Netflix's global list in 2024. Deadline, on June 25, 2024, reported the renewal in the same item that confirmed the streamer had quietly shelved The Grimm Reality, another Wiedemann & Berg project that had already been shot. Katja Hofem's DACH desk kept the gangsters and dumped the fairy-tale thriller. Rotten Tomatoes logged 80 percent from five reviews. That is not a critics' pile-on. It is a binge that paid for a second trip. , 
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Bangkok, Vienna, six more hours
German Wikipedia lists season two as six episodes, all dated April 14, 2026, running from Bussi Bussi to Catherine the Great. Charly gets leaned on by German police to fetch the coin, then flies to Bangkok. Joseph's people in Vienna run out of money. What's on Netflix named Mark Ivanir, Raymond Thiry, and Lili Epply among the new faces. Principal photography in 2025 hit Georgia, Thailand, and Vienna. TMDB still tags the series as returning. A third season has not been dated. The MacGuffin, like the real Maple Leaf, keeps moving. , ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzWOmY1d5vI
The official teaser is still the one Netflix posted in February 2024.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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