In the upcoming Netflix thriller series "Freud," the iconic creator of psychoanalysis teams up with a psychic and a cop to track a serial killer. Set in late 19th-century Vienna, a fictional young Freud uses his groundbreaking theories to solve the case. Today, psychoanalytic criminology is a method used to study criminal behavior, drawing from Freud's ideas.

In 1916, Freud published "Criminality from a Sense of Guilt," in which he claimed that many criminals drew on unconscious guilt to commit their crimes, somehow hoping they would end up punished. According to a memoir by one of his famous patients, the Russian Sergei Pankejeff — best known by his pseudonym, Wolf Man — Freud had very attentively read Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

A fictional Sigmund Freud was already invited to play alongside the world's most famous detective. In the 1974 novel "The Seven-Per-Cent Solution," a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure that was also turned into a film in 1976, Dr. Freud (Alan Arkin, left) helps Holmes (Robert Duvall) shake off his cocaine addiction. The real Freud was actually an early user and proponent of the drug.

A non-fiction book from 1993 inspired Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg's historical film from 2011, "A Dangerous Method." Viggo Mortensen (right) starred as the founder of psychoanalysis, while Keira Knightley portrayed Sabina Spielrein, who was initially one of Carl Jung's patients, and later became a pioneering female psychoanalyst.

A previous biopic on Freud for the silver screen came with the US drama "Freud: The Secret Passion" (1962). Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the original script, but after a fight with director John Huston, he didn't want his name in the credits. Montgomery Clift portrayed Freud's character, while Susannah York played the role of a patient with neurotic symptoms. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival.

Sigmund Freud's books were prominently burned and destroyed by the Nazis when they took power in 1933. Despite the threat, he didn't leave Austria and was still in the country when it was annexed by Nazi Germany in March 1938. When he finally fled to London in June that year, Salvador Dali, Stefan Zweig, Virginia Woolf and H. G. Wells were among the artists who visited him in support.

From Woody Allen's characters to cartoons in the New Yorker, a depiction of a psychiatrist's therapy session wouldn't be complete without a couch — even though they're no longer commonly used in real life. A gift from his patient Madane Benvenisti, Freud's couch is still on display in his last home in London, where the analyst died in 1939, at the age of 83.

The first German language TV series produced by Netflix for the international market, "Dark" was released on December 1, 2017. The first season consists of 10 episodes and tells the story of four families living in a small German town. The disappearance of two young children in surrounding forest leads to investigations revealing that something shady has been happening there since the 1980s.

The series was directed by Baran bo Odar and his wife, Jantje Friese, wrote the screenplay. The Swiss director filmed a similar story with the 2010 feature film, "The Silence," another thriller that interconnects two generations of a family in a small provincial German town. As the title suggests, his latest offering is a lot darker and claustrophobic.

The most expensive non-English drama series ever produced, "Babylon Berlin" started airing in Germany last October. Netflix purchased broadcast rights for the US. Three directors, including Tom Tykwer, recreated the atmosphere of Berlin in the 1920s for this period drama.

The first German series to be produced by Amazon, "You Are Wanted" started airing in March 2017 and was also made available worldwide through the Amazon Prime streaming service. It was directed by Matthias Schweighöfer, who also plays the lead role in this series dealing with cyber crime. Despite dividing the critics, the show's second season is already in production.

Broadcast on SundanceTV, "Deutschland 83" was the first German-language series to air on a US network with English subtitles. The show obtained a number of accolades, including an International Emmy Award. The second season of this Cold War spy thriller, titled "Deutschland 86," has just been released on Amazon Prime.

"4 Blocks," directed by Marvin Kren, is set in the Berlin district of Neukölln and is centered on different organized crime family clans. The series obtained rave reviews, with some critics comparing it to the US TV hit "The Sopranos." Since October 2017, it is available in over 150 countries on Amazon Video. A second season is in the making.