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Wolfgang Becker was born in 1954 in Hemer, Westphalia. After completing his Abitur, he studied German Studies, History, and American Studies at the Free University of Berlin. He then pursued further studies at the German Film and Television Academy (dffb), specializing as a cinematographer and assisting Michael Ballhaus and István Szabó. Becker first gained attention with his graduation film "Schmetterlinge," an adaptation of a story by British author Ian McEwan. The film won the Student Film Award (the equivalent of an Oscar for the best student film) in Hollywood, the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, and the Saarland Prime Minister's Prize at the Max Ophüls Festival in 1988.
Following the widely praised "Tatort" episode "Blutwurstwalzer" (1991), Becker directed the childhood drama "Kinderspiele" (1992), an exceptional television film that also received a theatrical release.
In 1997, "Das Leben ist eine Baustelle" ("Life Is All You Get") premiered at the Berlinale and became a notable success in cinemas. The film earned Jürgen Vogel, who played a lovesick daydreamer, a German Film Awards. It was also the first film produced by X Filme, the company Becker co-founded with Tom Tykwer, Dani Levy, and Stefan Arndt as an alternative production and distribution model.
In 2001/2002, Becker directed the feature film "Good Bye, Lenin!," which was released in German cinemas in 2003 to immense success. The film garnered international acclaim and won nine German Film Awards.
As an actor, Becker appeared in Dani Levy’s 2007 satire "Mein Führer – Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler" ("My Führer – The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler") where he played a concentration camp commander. He returned to directing with "Deutschland 09 – 13 kurze Filme zur Lage der Nation" ("Germany 09: 13 Short Films About the State of the Nation," 2009), an episodic film featuring several prominent directors offering their cinematic perspectives on Germany. The project premiered at the Berlinale in 2009.
It was only ten years after the worldwide success of "Good Bye, Lenin!" that Becker embarked on another feature film. "Ich & Kaminski" ("Me & Kaminski," 2015), based on Daniel Kehlmann's novel, tells the story of a self-absorbed journalist accompanying an elderly, blind artist on a tumultuous journey across Europe.
Becker reemerged years later as an actor, portraying a real estate tycoon in "Alfons Zitterbacke – Endlich Klassenfahrt!" (2022).
In 2024, Becker began work on his next directorial project: "Der Held vom Bahnhof Friedrichstraße," set 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The story, based on Maxim Leo's novel of the same name, follows a struggling video store owner (played by Charly Hübner) who is unwittingly turned into a hero of the fall of the Wall and finds himself ensnared in a web of lies and half-truths. Filming wrapped in November 2024. Tragically, Wolfgang Becker did not live to see the completion and release of his final film. He passed away on December 12, 2024.