Hans-Uwe Bauer was born on August 26, 1955 in Stralsund, East Germany (GDR). Shortly after his birth, his mother fled alone to West Germany, leaving Bauer to grow up in various GDR children's homes until he turned 18. After finishing school, he trained as a carpenter at the Berlin State Opera. He made his film debut in 1977 with a supporting role in Roland Gräf's GDR youth drama "P.S.", which premiered in 1979.

In 1980, Hans-Uwe Bauer began studying acting at the Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen 'Konrad Wolf' Potsdam-Babelsberg (now: Film University Babelsberg). There, he participated in student films, including those by Helke Misselwitz. Following his graduation, he engaged in theater productions in Görlitz, Greifswald, and Graz, as well as various theaters in Berlin.

Bauer's first major role in a DEFA film production was in 1982 as a Wehrmacht soldier in Frank Beyer's award-winning literary adaptation "Der Aufenthalt" ("The Turning Point"). Over the next years, he took on smaller and larger supporting roles in numerous DEFA productions, including Roland Gräf's "Fariaho" (GDR 1983), Rainer Simon's "Die Frau und der Fremde" ("The Woman and the Stranger", GDR 1984), and Horst E. Brandt's "Der Hut des Brigadiers" (GDR 1986). He was awarded Best Supporting Actor at the National Feature Film Festival of the GDR in 1986 for his role in Ralf Kirsten's "Wo andere schweigen" ("Where Others Keep Silent", GDR 1984), portraying socialist politician Clara Zetkin's pivotal days in 1932.

He played leading roles in "Dschungelzeit" ("Time in the Jungle", 1988), a Vietnamese co-production about a German ex-Foreign Legionnaire (Bauer) joining the Vietnamese liberation movement in the late 1940s, and as a family man in the marital and family drama "Versteckte Fallen" (GDR 1990).

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification, Bauer continued his career seamlessly. He appeared in Andreas Dresen's drama about the fall of the Berlin Wall, "Stilles Land" ("Silent Country", 1992), Dror Zahavi's "Der Besucher" ("The Visitor", 1992), Peter Welz's political bank robbers' story "Burning Life" (1994), and Leander Haußmann's East Berlin milieu study "Sonnenallee" ("Sun Alley", 1999). Bauer also starred in two German international successes: "Good Bye, Lenin!" (2003) and "Das Leben der Anderen" ("The Lives of Others", 2006), in which he played a pivotal role as a dissident in the GDR.

Additionally, Bauer appeared in television productions, including episodes of the TV series "Liebling Kreuzberg", "Kommissar Rex", and "In aller Freundschaft", as well as TV movies such as "Kelly Bastian - Geschichte einer Hoffnung" (2001), "Der Mörder in dir" (2001), and "Der letzte Tanz" (2005). He portrayed a detective in the crime film "Der blinde Fleck" (2007), a pedocriminal judge in the award-winning legal drama "Operation Zucker" ("Operation Sugar", 2012), and a retired Hamburg ship captain in "Verliebt in Masuren" (2018) - just to name a few examples. Bauer's other notable film roles include the tragicomic Berlin milieu study "Boxhagener Platz" (2010), the GDR escape drama "Westwind" (2011), and the Gerhard Richter biopic "Werk ohne Autor" ("Never Look Away", 2018).

He was frequently seen in various roles in the crime series "Tatort", for instance, in a dual role as a murderer and his twin brother in "Fürchte dich" (2017), and as a vengeful father of a murder victim in "Borowski und der gute Mensch" (2021). In the Grimme Award-nominated TV movie "Honecker und der Pastor" (2022), he portrayed theologian Uwe Holmer, who hosted Erich Honecker and his wife Margot during the peaceful revolution in the GDR in early 1990. The thriller series "Totenfrau" (AT/DE 2022) featured him as the father-in-law of Anna Maria Mühe's titular character.

Hans-Uwe Bauer appeared in Matthias Glasner's autobiographical, multi-award-winning family drama "Sterben" ("Dying", 2024) as a family father suffering from dementia. For this performance, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the German Film Awards 2024.