Makatsch was born in Düsseldorf, Germany, the daughter of former German national ice hockey team goaltender Rainer Makatsch.
She spent several months in New Mexico in 1988 in an effort to improve her English, and later studied politics and sociology at the University of Düsseldorf for four semesters, which was followed by an apprenticeship as a dressmaker until 1994.
Her television career started in 1993, when she was hired by music channel VIVA, hosting shows such as Interaktiv and Heikes Hausbesuche; two years later, on August 13 1995, she became the host of the German chart show BRAVO TV, aired by RTL II, a position she kept until summer 1996.
In 1997 she started hosting her own weekly, late night show titled Heike Makatsch Show.
However, due to bad ratings, it was cancelled after only eight episodes.
Makatsch first appeared in a movie in 1996, when she starred in Detlev Buck's Männerpension (English: "Jailbirds"); she received the Bavarian Film Award as most talented young actor for her performance.
Since then, she has appeared in several German and English language productions.
Berlin in the near future: A secret meeting takes place between a board member of the dominant internet company "Freemee" and members of the government. Camera drones film it unauthorized and document the events live on the Internet. The anonymous net activist group "Zero" is publicly committed to the media attack. Online journalist Cynthia Bonsant, widow and single mother, has been asked to do background research on "Zero" by the head of the online magazine "Daily". The group is classified as a terrorist organization, but according to their own statements they fight the excessive influence on the population through the so-called "Act App", which contoles the lives of users. When a friend of Cynthia's 17-year-old daughter Viola is shot dead in a hunt for a criminal, "Zero" contacts her and tries to recruit her for their own purposes. In the meantime, Cynthia has bad suspicions during her research, because soon a new version of the app will be released that will change everything.
16-year old Steffi just graduated from high school and is very much looking forward to her class trip to Paris where she has promised her boyfriend Fabian the romantic night that she has kept him waiting for so long. Her lifelong plan to join the police forces is already set up, her adult life is right around the corner. At a routine health check-up, just before the trip to Paris, Steffi and her parents are faced with a shattering diagnosis ...
17-year-old Cyril is funny, smart and an all-round good guy. Just his somewhat overlarge nose spoils the picture. On a school trip to Berlin with Roxy, a stunning new classmate, Cyril is not the only one taken with her. Benno, the class Casanova has his eye on the girl too and makes a nasty wager. Roxy is more interested in the introverted Rick, who is not only shy but also slow. Cyril hastens with his spoken word skills to Rick's aid, and falls head over heels in love with Roxy himself. So whose brave heart will win the fair lady?
Huckleberry Finn, a rambunctious boy adventurer chafing under the bonds of civilization, escapes his humdrum world and his selfish, plotting father by sailing a raft down the Mississippi River. Accompanying him is Jim, a slave running away from being sold. Together the two strike a bond of friendship that takes them through harrowing events and thrilling adventures.
Tom Sawyer has a head full of pranks and drives when he invents is not just a new adventure, preferably around with his best buddy Huck Finn - much to the chagrin of his Aunt Polly with Tom and his half-brother Sid in the town of St. Petersburg on the Mississippi river.
A successful artist loses control of his life after his young daughter's death. A chance for a new start appears, but all is not what it seems.
When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways.
The doctor and soccer player in the leisure time Jo Hauser decides to move to Berlin and be an intern in a famous clinic, expecting to increase his knowledge and expertize, and help his handicap brother Willi Hauser. He joins a secret fraternity of doctors, under the leadership of Prof. Muller-LaRousse, who is researching the use of bionic muscles in human beings without any ethics or respect to the laws. The team is also volunteer to the experiences, and is under investigation of Paula Henning. When Jo gets close to a Filipino nurse, and becomes addicted in the drugs used in experience, he realizes the truth hidden in the methods used by the secret society in the development of science.
Eight very different couples deal with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
Nackt is the story of three couples, one of which just broke up, one that seems to be about to and one perfectly okay. They are all friends and from time to time they gather to talk about everything.One time they gather for dinner at the second couple's "mansion" - the husband became rich with his business. We see each couple as they prepare themselves for the party and learn a lot about their relationships.At the dinner they get to talking about recognizing each other's peer with closed eyes and decide to try it (thus the title "Nackt"=naked in German).
When a virus leaks from a top-secret facility, turning all resident researchers into ravenous zombies and their lab animals into mutated hounds from hell, the government sends in an elite military task force to contain the outbreak.
In 1943, while the Allies are bombing Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the capital of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women – one a Jewish member of the underground, the other an exemplar of Nazi motherhood.
Two men become entangled in a torrid love affair with the same woman. Pierre is Miriam's longtime lover. John is desperately searching for clues about his past when he and Miriam have a fateful encounter in a Berlin train station. The allure of forbidden love becomes irresistible, and an intense love triangle is ignited. Who will Miriam choose? Who will walk away? For two men who desperately adore the same woman and for the woman who loves them equally...there is no easy way out.