In 1929 she returned to Europe and the next year acted in her first film, Why Sailors Leave Home, a British comedy directed by Monty Banks, starring Leslie Fuller.

[citation needed] It was the first of a series of modern escapist, lightweight operettas and glittering revue-style entertainments which quickly made Rökk one of Germany's most popular actresses.

[citation needed] She had the technical skill and glamour to carry off the formulaic plots and dialogue and provide German audiences with a home grown star to rival the popular American actresses.

By simultaneously impersonating dutiful and evil twin sisters, Rökk was able to showcase her range of theatrical talent, performing in several dance interludes which were quite risqué for that time.

In the same year, she appeared in the propaganda film Wunschkonzert by Eduard von Borsody (as herself), followed by her performance in Georg Jacoby's lavish Women Are Better Diplomats (Frauen sind doch bessere Diplomaten, UFA's first Agfacolor motion picture) in 1941, together with Willy Fritsch.

[citation needed] She reached the peak of her career in 1944, with the star role in The Woman of My Dreams, a lavishly enacted musical colour film again directed by Jacoby.

Though few of her movies featured overt Nazi propaganda, she fulfilled her mission to exemplify a leading woman in the Third Reich and to entertain the German people throughout World War II as intended by Goebbels.