After graduating from school, Helmut Dietl - who spend his childhood in Munich – served his military time as a paratrooper. Later, he studied dramatics and art history but never completed his degree. Afterwards, he worked as a production manager and became assistant director at the Munich Kammerspiele. Furthermore, he shot commercials, wrote screenplays for television series and achieved his first success as a director.

In 1975, he directed the TV series "Münchner Geschichten", starring Therese Giehse in her last role, followed by "Der ganz normale Wahnsinn" in 1978/79. Both productions introduced the main characteristics of his later works - astute satires that are almost invariably set in Munich and that sometimes succumb to the superficial appeal of their larger-than-life protagonists.

Alongside the producer Jürgen Dohme and the writer Patrick Süskind, Dietl achieved great fame through his 80s TV series "Monaco Franze" and "Kir Royal". While "Monaco Franze" revolved around a womanizer played by Helmut Fischer, the six-part series "Kir Royal", which won the Grimme Award, centered on a gossip reporter named Baby Schimmerlos (Franz Xaver Kroetz).

Dietl also obtained public and critical recognition with his feature film "Schtonk!" (1991/92), a satire exploring the affair of the bogus Adolf Hitler diaries. By means of an outstanding ensemble of actors as well as a clever screenplay, Dietl succeeded in exposing the vain media circus and Germany’s obsession with its Nazi past as narcissistic maladjustment of the establishment. His movie "Rossini oder die mörderische Frage, wer mit wem schlief" ("Rossini", 1996), which gives an insider’s look into Munich’s film scene, turned out to be another success at the box office. Critics, however, found fault with the lack of distance between the director and writer Dietl and his subject matter.

Dietl’s third film "Late Show" (1998), produced by his own company, featured Harald Schmidt and Thomas Gottschalk in the leading roles. "Vom Suchen und Finden der Liebe" (2004, screenplay by Patrick Süskind) is a somewhat flat retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydike. The TV documentary "Ein Mann für jedes Alter" is an homage to Mario Adorf on occasion of his 70th birthday.