Mistress of the World is a 1960 multinational European science fiction spy film remake of the 1919 eight-part silent film The Mistress of the World directed by William Dieterle and starring Martha Hyer and Carlos Thompson. It marked the comeback in his native country of the director William Dieterle after several decades spent in Hollywood. In West Germany, it was released in a longer version split in two parts.

William Dieterle was a German-born actor and film director who emigrated to the United States in 1930 to leave a worsening political situation. He worked in Hollywood primarily as a director for much of his career, becoming a United States citizen in 1937. He moved back to Germany in the late 1950s.