5 Best Christian Oliver Movies And TV Shows Ranked

Though he was born and raised in Germany, Christian Oliver's first TV and film credits were both in American productions — "Saved by the Bell: The New Class" (1994) and "The Baby-Sitters Club" (1995), respectively. He balanced appearances in both countries during his acting career, which saw him work with some of the biggest names in Tinseltown. Sadly, his career and life came to a tragic end in January 2024: The actor and his two daughters died in a plane crash.

Though Oliver was one of many actors who died in 2024, he still managed to put together an impressive and highly varied résumé across the 30 years he spent in the business. On the whole, he did a lot more film than television, but the small screen is where some of his most acclaimed work happened. This top five list was determined by balancing the quality of the projects themselves with Oliver's presence and performances in them.

There are a lot of '90s movies that have not aged well, but 1995's "The Baby-Sitters Club" is not one of them. Christian Oliver's first big screen role was playing Luca in this coming-of-age dramedy from director Melanie Mayron, which was adapted from Ann M. Martin's novel series of the same name. It wasn't a hit at the box office, but it did well with critics and was called "a beautiful film that possesses the power to enchant all ages" by Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times.

The movie follows a group of babysitters who form a sort of babysitter summer camp with the kids they are looking after. But it's also about the girls' social lives within and outside of the group, and that's where Oliver comes. As Luca, he was the cousin to one of the girls and the object of a crush by another. Things get complicated when the girl lies about her age in order to attempt to romance the much older Luca. Oliver was already brimming with charm in the role, and even though his part was fairly small when considering the size of the cast, he still made an impact in every scene he was in.

While critical response was tepid upon release and it flopped at the box office, time has been kind to the 2008 film adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida's classic manga series "Speed Racer" — here at Looper, we consider it to be one of the best racing movies of all time. It's the kind of film that was perhaps always destined to be misunderstood in its day and was only ever going to be properly appreciated as a cult classic years later, when people were able to judge it on its own merits and without the baggage of impossibly high hype, something that the Wachowskis have constantly had to battle against since "The Matrix" put them at that level.

In the first of what would end up being two projects Christian Oliver did with the Wachowskis, he was cast in "Speed Racer" as a shifty villain driver named Snake Oiler. It's another example of Oliver standing out among a huge ensemble. He turned in a standout performance and clearly understood the assignment — the actor was just the right amount of campy but without taking it too far. When Oliver died, several outlets chose to mention "Speed Racer" in their headlines about the news, proving that many consider this to be his signature role. 

"Timeless" is an inventive, time-hopping sci-fi series that ran for two seasons on NBC between 2016 and 2018. A team is tasked with chasing a man as he jumps to various crucial moments in history and interferes with them in ways that benefit his own nefarious ends. These moments include the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the crash of the Hindenburg, the Salem witch trials, and more. The characters often rub shoulders with real historical figures, which was a huge draw for the show.

The Season 1 episode "Party at Castle Varlar" is a wild adventure involving the Nazis as well as historical figures like James Bond creator Ian Fleming and German space engineer Wernher von Braun. Christian Oliver plays von Braun, who the main villain, Garcia Flynn (Goran Višnjić), is intent on kidnapping. Von Braun is painted as a sympathetic character, one who simply wanted to make scientific breakthroughs and had orders he needed to follow in order to keep doing his work. He insists that he never had any intention of that work being used to hurt people. Oliver does a wonderful job in selling this take on von Braun, making this one of his best performances despite it being a one-off guest spot.

You may not have heard of the television series "Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei" (meaning "Alarm for Cobra 11 – The Highway Police"), despite the fact that it has been running since 1996 and has over 380 episodes. That's because it's a German show which, as of this writing, isn't streamable in the United States. But when discussing the career of Christian Oliver, it wouldn't be right to ignore "Alarm for Cobra 11" just because American audiences are largely unfamiliar with it and have no way of watching it.

Outside of the U.S. (and certainly in Germany), Oliver's two-season stint on the highway police procedural series as detective inspector Jan Richter is the role he's most associated with. He was a regular for Season 9 and Season 10 of the show, which aired between 2003 and 2005. It wasn't long after this that his movie career finally began to take off and Hollywood was ready to give him a real shot, so that's probably why he left "Alarm for Cobra 11," despite its popularity in Germany and the acclaim he had received for his role in the show.

The second time that Christian Oliver worked with the Wachowskis was on their Emmy-nominated Netflix series "Sense8." It's centered around a group of eight people who find that they share a psychic connection and soon discover that said connection makes them the target of a mysterious organization set on killing them. In addition to being critically acclaimed, it also got a lot of praise for the diversity of its cast. When its cancellation was announced, "Sense8" fans took their dedication to a new level to save their favorite show, creating a petition that proved just how many people wanted it to continue. Astonishingly, Netflix listened, giving the show one additional episode to wrap up its story.

Christian Oliver appeared in three episodes of "Sense8," leaving his mark as Steiner Bogdanow, one of the show's most memorable villains. Like most Wachowski-created villains, Steiner could be over-the-top and prone to scene-chewing monologues — but, just like he did in "Speed Racer," Oliver knew just how to play the bad guy. It makes one wonder what kind of antagonists he could've played in the "Matrix" movies if he had been given the chance, or what future collaborations he could have had with the Wachowskis if his life hadn't been cut tragically short.