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CrGeC thin films were grown by magnetron sputtering from elemental targets. Phase-pure CrGeC was grown directly onto AlO(0001) at temperatures of 700–800 °C. These films have an epitaxial component with the well-known epitaxial relationship CrGeC(0001)//AlO(0001) and or There is also a large secondary grain population with orientation. Deposition onto AlO(0001) with a TiN(111) seed layer and onto MgO(111) yielded growth of globally epitaxial CrGeC(0001) with a virtually negligible contribution. In contrast to the films deposited at 700–800 °C, the ones grown at 500–600 °C are polycrystalline CrGeC with -dominated orientation; they also exhibit surface segregations of Ge as a consequence of fast Ge diffusion rates along the basal planes. The room-temperature resistivity of our samples is 53–66 μΩcm. Temperature …