Klaus Maria Brandauer was born June 22, 1943 in Bad Aussee, Austria. After graduating from school in 1962, he enrolled at the State University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart where he studied for two terms. In 1963, he began working at the Landestheater in Tübingen. One year later, he switched to the Landestheater Salzburg, where he made his debut as a stage director in 1965 with a production of Heinz Coubier's "Aimée oder Der gesunde Menschenverstand". 1966: Schauspielhaus, Düsseldorf. 1968: Theater in der Josefstadt, Vienna. Since 1972: Burgtheater, Vienna. In addition to these engagements, Brandauer made guest performances in Munich and at the Salzburg Festival.

In the 1970s, he became one of the most popular German-speaking stage actors. His first TV productions consisted almost solely of shootings of stage performances or stage play adaptations. He made his film debut in 1971 with Lee H. Katzin's spy thriller "The Salzburg Connection". In 1980/81, he portrayed the actor Hendrik Höfgen in "Mephisto" (István Szabó), a film adaptation of Klaus Mann's roman a clef about Gustaf Gründgens. He continued to work with Szabó on "Oberst Redl" ("Colonel Redl", 1984) - which won the German Film Award - and "Hanussen" (1987).

After "Mephisto" was awarded the 1981 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Brandauer was able to start an international career. In the 1983 Bond adventure "Never Say Never Again" (Irvin Kershner) he played the villain opposite Sean Connery. In Sydney Pollack's "Out of Africa" he starred as Karen "Tania" Blixen's unloved husband and reveived a Golden Globe as well as an Oscar nomination for his performance.

In two German movies dealing with the Nazi era he played sympathetic characters: In "Das Spinnennetz" (Bernhard Wicki) and in "Georg Elser – einer aus Deutschland", which he directed and in which he starred as the would-be assassin of Adolf Hitler. "Burning Secret" (Andrew Birkin) and "The Russia House" (Fred Schepisi) helped Brandauer to assert himself in the international movie business.

His second feature as a director, an adaptation of Thomas Mann's novella "Mario und der Zauberer" ("Mario and the Magician") in which he also starred as the diabolic seducer, was a failure. Afterwards, Brandauer predominantly starred in international productions. In 1996, Brandauer received an honorary doctorate for acting from the University of Tel Aviv, Israel. In spring 1997, he directed Brahms and Tieck's "Magelone" in Meiningen, Germany.

As a screen actor, Brandauer subsequently took the leading role in the biopic "Rembrandt" in 1999, and in 2001 he played Julius Caesar in "Vercingétorix". He appeared in "Jedermanns Fest" (2002) and in Francis Ford Coppola's "Tetro" (2009). In 2011, he starred opposite Sebastian Koch in the Swiss-German thriller "Manipulation", and a year later, he took on the title role in Antonin Svoboda's "The Strange Case of Wilhelm Reich".

In 2013, Brandauer received three prestigious awards: the Stanislawski-Preis, the honorary ring of the Steiermark and the honorary ring of the Burgtheater. The same year, he starred opposite Martina Gedeck in a TV adaptation of Stefan Zweig's novel "Die Auslöschung" (AT/DE). Brandauer's performance got rave reviews and garnered him Best Actor Awards at the Deutscher Schauspielerpreis and the Festival de Télévision de Monte Carlo. Also in 2013, Brandauer starred in a stage production of Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape" at Schloss Neuhardenberg. and played "King Lear" at the Burgtheater in Vienna. He also guest-starred in stage productions in Paris, Moscow and Lisbon.

In 2014, he received the Nestroy award for lifetime achievement as well as the honorary award of the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Films – Die Brücke. In 2016, he was the winner of the Honorary Award of the Hessian Prime Minister at the 2016 Hesse Film Awards. The same year, production began on the TV thriller series "Capelli Code" with Brandauer in the leading role.

On stage, he played a leading role in the play "Überwältigung" by Thomas Melle at the Nibelungen Festival in Worms in 2019. In the same year, Brandauer took a leading role in the TV production "Ferdinand von Schirach: Feinde" ("Ferdinand von Schirach: Enemies") as the defense attorney of a child kidnapper who was tortured by the police into revealing the victim's hiding place. The film was broadcast in January 2021.

In 2020, another collaboration with István Szabó was already screened in Hungarian cinemas, more than 30 years after their last collaboration "Hanussen": In "Zárójelentés" ("Final Report"), Brandauer embodied a renowned doctor who returns to his home village and encounters a swamp of corruption and intrigue.

Apart from his stage and film career, Brandauer also has established himself as a renowned author and lecturer, and in 1991, he published the autobiography "Das Schwerste ist am leichtesten". Moreover, Brandauer is a professor at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna.