Dror Zahavi was born on 6 February 1956 in Tel Aviv, Israel. After finishing school he moved to the GDR in 1982, where he studied directing at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen 'Konrad Wolf' in Potsdam-Babelsberg on a scholarship. His graduation film, the medium-length documentary "Alexander Penn - ich will sein in allem" (1988), was nominated for the Student Oscar. After his studies Zahavi returned to Israel where he worked as a film critic.

In 1989, the year of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he briefly returned to Berlin before finally settling there in 1991. His first long feature film "Der Besucher" ("The Visitor", 1992) was about a young Israeli (played by screenwriter André Hennicke), who comes to Germany shortly after the reunification and finds himself in a Kafkaesque setting. In the following years Zahavi shot episodes of various series, including the soap "Verbotene Liebe" (1995) and "Die Männer vom K3" (1998). He won the German Television Award and the Bavarian Television Award for Best Director for the episode "Die Todfreundin" (1999) from the series "Doppelter Einsatz".

From 2000 onwards, Zahavi primarily worked for television. Great successes included the black-humorous comedy "Der Mann von nebenan" (2001) with Andrea Sawatzki and Axel Milberg, the emancipation comedy "Mutter auf der Palme" (2002) with Saskia Vester, the period drama "Die Luftbrücke - Nur der Himmel war frei" ("The Airlift", 2005) with Ulrich Tukur and Heino Ferch, and the epic two-parter "Der geheimnisvolle Schatz von Troja" ("The Hunt for Troy", 2007) starring Heino Ferch.

In 2008 Zahavi presented his first feature film: "Alles für meinen Vater" ("For My Father", IL/DE), about a Palestinian suicide bomber who unexpectedly falls in love with a Jewish woman in Tel Aviv. The film was awarded the Audience Award at the Moscow Film Festival and won the Grand Prix at the Sofia International Film Festival. At the Israeli film award Ophir, the film was nominated in seven categories.

Despite this success, Zahavi continued to focus on his television work. His adaptation of literature critic Marcel Reich Ranicki's memoir "Mein Leben" (2009) was nominated for the International Emmy Award. For the drama "Zivilcourage" ("Civil Courage", 2010) he received the audience award of the Marler Gruppe at the Grimme Prize together with Jürgen Werner (screenplay), Götz George and Carolyn Genzkow (cast). "Kehrtwende" (2011), about the effects of domestic violence on the everyday life of a family of four, received much critical praise and the Robert Geisendörfer Prize.

Again with Heino Ferch in the leading role, Zahavi shot "München 72 - Das Attentat" (2012), that reconstructed the hostage drama during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. "Und alle haben geschwiegen" (2012), based on a book by Peter Wensierski, dealt with the violence and injustice in West German home education in the 1960s and 70s. "Herbe Mischung" (2015) is about a Jew living in Germany who has to travel to Tel Aviv with his life partner, a German-Arab, to visit his family. Zahavi also directed several episodes of the popular and long-running German crime series "Tatort", such as the episode "König der Gosse" (2016) and the episode "Tollwut" (2018).

At the Munich Film Festival 2019, Dror Zahavi presented his second feature film: "Crescendo #makemusicnotwar" (DE/IT/AT), about the gradual and difficult fusion of a Palestinian and an Israeli youth orchestra in Tel Aviv, before both are to appear together in South Tyrol at a peace summit. At the Jewish Film Festival Berlin / Brandenburg 2019, "Crescendo #makemusicnotwar" received the "recommendation for the best German film with a Jewish theme"; at the Festival of German Film it won the audience award Rheingold. The had its theatrical release in Germany in January 2020.