Michael Kranz

Acting

Michael Kranz

Born 1983-04-17 · Ravensburg, Germany

Since his father was the senior physician of a ward in the Bad Schussenried Centre for Psychiatry, he grew up with his three siblings in a service flat on the former hospital grounds. He attended the Studienkolleg St.Johann Blönried and graduated from there in 2003. At the age of 17, he lived for one year on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where he graduated from Red Cloud High School in 2001. In 2008 he completed his acting education at the Otto Falckenberg School in Munich. He studied at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München and graduated there in March 2018 with a diploma in documentary film directing and television journalism. Internationally, Kranz was seen in the drama The White Ribbon (2009) by Michael Haneke, in Quentin Tarantino's war film Inglourious Basterds and in Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies. He became known to a wider television audience with the series Hindafing, in which he plays the city priest Kraus. The series was awarded the Austrian film prize Romy in 2018. His spot myBorder's joyFence was awarded the First Steps Award and the Porsche Award in 2018.

Acting credits

Inglourious Basterds poster
8.2

In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds, lead by Lt. Aldo Raine soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

Inglourious Basterds

2009

War Horse poster
7.3

On the brink of the First World War, Albert's beloved horse Joey is sold to the Cavalry by his father. Against the backdrop of the Great War, Joey begins an odyssey full of danger, joy, and sorrow, and he transforms everyone he meets along the way. Meanwhile, Albert, unable to forget his equine friend, searches the battlefields of France to find Joey and bring him home.

War Horse

2011

Heidi poster
7.3

Heidi, is an eight-year-old Swiss orphan who is given by her aunt to her mountain-dwelling grandfather. She is then stolen back by her aunt from her grandfather to live in the wealthy Sesemann household in Frankfurt, Germany as a companion to Klara, a sheltered, disabled girl in a wheelchair. Heidi is unhappy but makes the best of the situation, always longing for her grandfather.

Heidi

2015

The Fifth Estate poster
6.0

A look at the relationship between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his early supporter and eventual colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and how the website's growth and influence led to an irreparable rift between the two friends.

The Fifth Estate

2013

The White Ribbon poster
7.5

An aged tailor recalls his life as the schoolteacher of a small village in Northern Germany that was struck by a series of strange events in the year leading up to WWI.

The White Ribbon

2009

Räuber Kneißl poster
4.7

Even today, Mathias Kneißl (1875-1902) is considered a national hero in the collective memory of Bavaria. During his lifetime, he was the most wanted criminal in Bavaria and even Prince Regent Luitpold was reported daily on the hunt for the lawbreaker report. Again and again Kneißl's story has occupied the Bavarian artists: his life was retold in folk songs and murders, sung in ballads, filmed and treated in various plays. In his feature film version, the Bavarian filmmaker Marcus H. Rosenmüller relies on a rapid staging, opulent images and a moving love story.

Räuber Kneißl

2008

Nanga Parbat poster
6.6

Drama about the tragic Nanga Parbat expedition by the two Messner brothers in 1970, on which Reinhold Messners younger brother Günther died.

Nanga Parbat

2010

13 Minutes poster
6.8

The breathtaking story of a man who nearly would have changed the world. In 1939, when Hitler tricked millions of people at the height of his power, radical Georg Elser — disparaged as an assassin — is one of the greatest resistance fighters.

13 Minutes

2015

Rommel poster
6.0

The story of the final seven months in the life of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

Rommel

2012

Der Garmisch Krimi - Wolfsmord poster
6.2

A murder case in Garmisch: the victim is the chairman of the nature conservation association, at a time when wolves are on the loose and the population is divided into wolf opponents and supporters. Investigators Ira Zach and Daphne Meindl pick up the trail.

Der Garmisch Krimi - Wolfsmord

2026

Time We Lost poster
7.2

School principal Hans is about to retire, but neither he nor his wife, Rita, are happy about their newly gained free time. For the past 35 years, their marriage has followed a well-established routine, with Rita setting the pace. As far as Rita is concerned, there is no reason to change anything. In fact, she does not like change at all. However, a stroke of fate reopens old wounds and forces them to ask themselves: Are they still a couple, or two separate individuals?

Time We Lost

2025

Fräulein Else poster
5.0

Else joins her aunt to spend her holidays in a remote luxury hotel in India. She receives a message by her mother disclosing that her father has enormous debts and her mother asks Else for help. This gets Else into serious troubles - with deadly consequences.

Fräulein Else

2014

The Diary of Anne Frank poster
7.2

The story of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who went into hiding with her family in Amsterdam and became a victim of the Holocaust.

The Diary of Anne Frank

2016

The Pursuit of Unhappiness poster
5.9

Based on the best-selling psychology book by Paul Watzlawick, the film tells the story of Tiffany Blechschmid, a neurotic, moony, superstitious, contradictory and, no surprises here, single young woman in her late-twenties.

The Pursuit of Unhappiness

2012

Siblings poster
3.3

The siblings Bebe and Mikhail leave their country of Moldova to apply for asylum in Germany. Their flight turns into a modern odyssey.

Siblings

2016

Finsterworld poster
6.4

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Finsterworld

2013

The Master Butcher poster
7.8

After his return from World War I, there is no more work for Fidelis in his parents' butcher shop in Swabia, Germany. To make a better life for himself and Eva, the former fiancée of a friend who fell in battle, he emigrates to Argus, a town in North Dakota, in the United States. The artist Delphine, in whom Eva will find a friend, also moves there. To relieve Eva's homesickness, Fidelis founds a singing club.

The Master Butcher

2019

The Goldfish poster
6.4

Oliver is a banker and portfolio manager and leads a life in the fast lane, which one day comes to an abrupt end, as he builds a self-inflicted accident on highway with 230 km / h and raced through a guardrail. When he wakes up in the hospital again, he faces a devastating diagnosis: paraplegia. Actually, a rehabilitation stay of several months is planned in the hospital, but Oliver soon falls on his head and ends up in a disabled shared flat with the name "Die Goldfische"

The Goldfish

2019

The Young Chief Winnetou poster
4.3

Winnetou's tribe is in dire straits. There is a threat of famine as the all-important buffalo herds are now failing. As the headman's son, young Winnetou wants to prove to his father Intschu-chuna how brave he is and how great a warrior he can be, because he thinks his son still has a lot to learn. To save his tribe, he goes on a dangerous adventure.

The Young Chief Winnetou

2022

Local Heroes poster
NR

A leather jacket and eyes blackened with make-up. Tommy is a musician with heart, having long outlived his idol, Kurt Cobain. Like him, though, he is also self-destructive and is drawn increasingly into a musical mania and alcohol excess. For the dream of a record contract, promised to the winner of local band contest, he will go to any lengths. The driven individual stops for no one – be it others or himself.

Local Heroes

2013

Rehragout-Rendezvous poster
6.7

Bavaria's most laid-back cop returns, juggling parenting and working at the family farm with the reopening of a grisly cold case.

Rehragout-Rendezvous

2023

Hirngespinster poster
5.5

Simon falls head over heels in love with pretty and quick-witted Verena. When his father, who suffers from schizophrenia, has a relapse, Simon devotes himself completely to his mother and little sister and endangers his budding romance. Maneuvering himself into a near-fatal situation, Simon realizes that he cannot change the others' lives, but only his own.

Hirngespinster

2014

Hannes poster
5.3

Born at the same place, on the same day, Hannes and Moritz grow up to be inseparable friends. But one day a tragic motorcycle accident will change their lives forever, leaving Hannes in a coma with a slim chance of recovery. Moritz refuses to give up on his friend and puts his own life aside to ensure Hannes is always loved and surrounded by life and laughter. Trying to stand his ground, Moritz will then embark on an inspiring and life-changing journey, realizing that every day is worth celebrating and proving their friendship is stronger than ever.

Hannes

2021

I love Everything I Hate About You poster
4.0

While out for a walk in the forest one day, Helena, who is in love with her twin sister’s boyfriend, stum-bles upon a group of scientists setting hormone traps. Anyone who is to come in contact with the hormones, falls in love with the first person they see. Well, what if everyone falls in love with the wrong person?

I love Everything I Hate About You

2018

Behind the camera

MyBorder's JOYFence poster
NR

No more need to subject yourself to poor or foreign people in public: myBorder’s joyFence, your personal border wall, finally offers protection – mobile and easy to handle for daily use. The product the world was waiting for!

MyBorder's JOYFence

2018

Was Tun poster
8.0

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Was Tun

2022

Was Tun poster
8.0

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Was Tun

2022

Was Tun poster
8.0

Faced with a documentary film that included an interview with a young girl forced into prostitution, Michael Kranz asked himself the apparently banal question of “what can be done?” He travelled to Bangladesh and began to search for the girl. A film that is both self-critical and critical of society about the desire to at least do something and not to simply and passively give in to the injustices in this world.

Was Tun

2022