Volker Schlöndorff (b. March 31, 1939 in Wiesbaden, Germany) is an acclaimed director and a professor of film and literature at the European Graduate School EGS. He is considered to be part of the German New Cinema, though his work is singular within this movement for his choice of material and his independent style. One aspect of Volker Schlöndorff's films which sets them apart is their strong literary inspiration; many of his films are adaptations of famous literary works by Arthur Miller, Gunter Grass, Marcel Proust, Heinrich von Kleist, and others.

A native of Germany, Volker Schlöndorff initially rebelled against his cultural origins and sought his identity in American and French culture. He worked for ten years in France as an assistant to several French directors, including Louis Malle, Alain Resnais, and Jean-Pierre Melville, though he eventually realized that it was too artificial for him as a German to try to be a director in France. This led him back to Germany, where he directed his first literary adaptation, Young Törless (1966), which carved out a style that would remain particular to him throughout his career. His most famous film, The Tin Drum (1979), won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Palme d'Or.

Due to their frequent origins in literary sources, Volker Schlöndorff's films possess a strong attention to narrative. There is a tendency in his films for exploring the meaning of a character's life struggle in relation to false cultural or institutional ideals. In his adaptation of Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman (1985), the hypocritical perfection of the American Dream is shown in its destructive consequences. His film Strike (2006) tells the story of Agnieszka Wolynicza, who was instrumental in the Solidarity Movement in Poland. History and character are nearly opposed in this film and are related to one another in an indirect or latent way. This comes across in the structure of the film, which is separated into a biopic of the character that closely follows her life and a section at the end which reveals the macroscopic effects of her activity in relation to the Solidarity Movement. However, this film, along with many of Volker Schlöndorff's others, is told from a position of non-belief in the romanticism of historical necessity.

Volker Schlöndorff has directed: Der junge Törleß (1966), Der Paukenspieler (1967), Mord und Totschlag (1967), Michael Kohlhaas – Der Rebell (1969), Baal (1970), Der plötzliche Reichtum der armen Leute von Kombach (1971), Die Moral der Ruth Halbfass (1972), Strohfeuer (1972), Übernachtung in Tirol (1974), Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann (1975), Der Fangschuß (1976), Nur zum Spaß, nur zum Spiel (1977), the segment 'Die verschobene Antigone' in Deutschland im Herbst (1978), Die Blechtrommel (1979), Der Kandidat (1980), Die Fälschung (1981), Krieg und Frieden (1982), Un amour de Swann (1984), Death of a Salesman (1984), A Gathering of Old Men (1987), The Handmaid's Tale (1990), Homo Faber (1991), The Michael Nyman Songbook (1992), Der Unhold (1996), Palmetto (1998), Die Stille nach dem Schuß (2000), Ein Produzent hat Seele oder er hat keine (2002), the segment 'The Enlightenment' in Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (2002), Der neunte Tag (2004), Enigma – Eine uneingestandene Liebe (2005), Billy Wilder Speaks (2006), Strajk – Die Heldin von Danzig (2006), and Ulzhan (2007).