Mehdi Nebbou was born on January 10, 1971, in Bayonne, France, to a German mother and an Algerian father. His older brother is the French director and actor Safy Nebbou (*1968). He grew up in France and moved to Berlin at the age of 18, where he attended acting workshops before shifting his focus. In 1993, he relocated to Milan to train as a carpenter before returning to Berlin. From 1995 to 2003, Nebbou studied directing at the German Film and Television Academy (dffb), where he created his own short films and worked as an editor on the successful video game adaptation "Resident Evil" (DE/GB 2002).

However, during his time at the dffb, Mehdi Nebbou also took on his first acting roles in short films and television productions. Before long, he shifted his focus entirely to acting. His first leading role in a feature film came in Benjamin Heisenberg’s critically acclaimed drama "Schläfer" ("Sleeper", 2005), in which he portrayed an Iranian scientist suspected of terrorism. That same year, he appeared in Steven Spielberg’s "Munich" (US/CN/FR 2005) as Ali Hassan Salameh, the leader of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, which carried out the 1972 Munich Olympics attack.

In the following years, Nebbou acted in numerous international productions, primarily French films, often playing morally ambiguous characters. He portrayed terrorists in the espionage thrillers "Body of Lies" (US 2008) and "Secret défense" ("Secret Defense", FR 2008), as well as a criminal in the crime drama "Les liens du sang" ("Rivals", FR 2008). However, he also took on more diverse roles, such as a police detective in the thriller "Switch" (FR 2011) and the love interest of the title character in the comedy "Joséphine" (FR 2013).

Nebbou continued to appear regularly in German productions as well. In Lars Kraume’s dystopian drama "Die kommenden Tage" ("The Days to Come", 2010), he played a French revolutionary, while in the Munich "Tatort" episode "Die Heilige" (2010), he portrayed an escaped convict. He also appeared in the TV crime drama "Mein Mann, ein Mörder" (2013) as the ex-boyfriend of a murder victim.

His performance in the critically acclaimed film "Wir Monster" ("We Monsters", 2014) as a father whose teenage daughter confesses to murder was widely praised. He also starred in Franz Müller’s award-winning friendship drama "Happy Hour" (2015) and the psychological drama "Tiere" ("Animals", CH/AT/PL 2017) alongside Birgit Minichmayr and Philipp Hochmair. In "Totgeschwiegen" ("Deadly Silence", 2019), he played the foster father of a student involved in the death of a homeless man, earning further critical acclaim. Nebbou reunited with Ridley Scott, whom he had worked with on "Body of Lies", for "House of Gucci" (US 2021), in which he portrayed an Arab prince and business associate of the Gucci family.

In 2021, he took on a lead role as a detective in the hit French crime series "HPI: Haut Potentiel Intellectuel" ("HPI"). From then on, he appeared only occasionally in other productions, including as an absent father in the German-French mother-son drama "Kein Wort" ("Not a Word", 2023).

In 2025, two films featuring Mehdi Nebbou were released in cinemas: in the gangster tragedy "Kein Tier. So Wild." ("No Beast. So Fierce."), he played a member of an Arab Berlin crime clan, while in the children's film "Der Prank – April, April!" ("The Prank"), he portrayed the father of the young protagonist.