Lukasz wants to get out of the social hotspot. He thinks he has found a way out as a thug for Hamburg's "Milan" club, until his little brother turns up on his doorstep after the death of their mother.
Violent youth gangs and a police force way out of its depth. When a police operation goes awry and two policemen die, the powder keg threatens to ignite as the SWAT team knows only one goal: revenge - irrespective of the law.
The young law student Aylin knows exactly what she wants: Become a lawyer. To finance her studies, she works as an escort girl. Because she had to defend herself against a pushy businessman, now threatened five years in prison. From the police comes an offer that she embarks on in her distress: As a decoy Aylin can avert her punishment and even continue to study law. Drug investigator Jan and his boss Hannah use them on the smuggler Musab to arrest him in the act. How dangerous the clever Clan chief can be, but they both do not say.
A young man is searching for his place in the world. He finds his way, religion and his "brothers" in the radical Islam. What begins with the wish of helping people in Syria leads Jan through religious murder as an ISIS-soldier and back to his home county Germany.
Ali, once a promising young boxer from the Romani community and the only daughter of a Romani leader, falls in disgrace when she gives birth to her second child out of wedlock.
After 14 years of prison Nabil is released and thrown back into his life.
"Artists" tells the fateful stories of eight young people behind bars who hope for nothing more than freedom and the simple desire to be normal again.