Meret Becker, born January 15, 1969, in Bremen, is the daughter of the actors Monika Hansen and Rolf Becker. When Meret was five, her parents separated. Meret and her brother, Ben Becker, stayed with her mother who then married the actor Otto Sander.

Meret Becker started her acting career already at the age of five in the TV series "Rappelkiste", an anti-authoritarian children’s program that in a way already forestalled many of Becker’s later roles of strong-willed and non-conformist characters. After several smaller parts in the TV series "Auf Achse" alongside Manfred Krug and in Bernhard Sinkel's drama "Kaltgestellt" ("Put on Ice"), Becker started her actual acting career at the age of eleven alongside her step-father Otto Sander and the legendary Curt Bois in the TV movie "Der Mond scheint über Kylenamone". At the age of 17, Becker dropped out of school against her step-father’s advice to focus completely on acting.

In the beginning of the 1990s, Becker made her breakthrough in three films directed by Doris Dörrie and Sönke Wortmann. In Wortmann's film "Allein unter Frauen" ("Alone Among Women", 1991), Becker portrayed a shy member of a girls' flat share. In Dörrie's film "Happy Birthday, Türke" ("Happy Birthday!", 1992), she played a convincing Lolita prostitute and in Wortmann's cult film "Kleine Haie" ("Acting It Out", 1992), Becker brilliantly played an eccentric street musician. In 1992, Becker won the Adolf Grimme award as "Best female newcomer". Two years later, she also won the Bavarian film award as "best supporting actress" for her portrayal of the mentally unstable widow of a police officer in Dominik Graf's thriller "Die Sieger" ("The Invincibles ").

In the following years, Becker made brilliant performances, portraying characters who are at the same time bizarre as well as sensitive and at the same rebellious as well as looking for support. All of those characters are outsiders whose straightforwardness and outspokenness often comes across as a protective shield against insults and emotional hurt. Becker played characters of this kind for instance in "Das Versprechen" ("The Promise", 1994), "Das Leben ist eine Baustelle" ("Life Is All You Get", 1995) or "Comedian Harmonists", which won her the German film award in 1998 as "best supporting actress".

Besides her acting career, Meret Becker is also a successful musician and chanson singer (for instance with the cabaret ensemble "Ars Vitalis"). She was married to Alexander Hacke, the guitarist of the band "Einstürzende Neubauten", from 1996 to 2002.

Becker is still one of most active actresses of German cinema. Until now, she has starred in more than 100 films and TV movies, always alternating between mainstream productions and ambitious independent productions. Thus, she recently appeared in "Arthouse" productions such as "Unkenrufe" ("Call of the Toad"), in independent films such as "Urlaub vom Leben" ("Holiday From Life", 2005) and "Komm näher" ("Happy As One", 2006), in Hollywood movies such as "Munich" (2005), and in mainstream entertainment films such as the comedy "Meine schöne Bescherung" (2007).

Even if not all of these films were box office hits, Meret Becker’s presence on the big screen has remained constant over the years. She was part of the ensemble casts in several productions, including Neele Leana Vollmar's melancholic comedy "Friedliche Zeiten" ("Peaceful Times", 2008), Dani Levy's film industry satire "Das Leben ist zu lang" ("Life Is Too Long", 2010), and Til Schweiger's romantic comedy "Kokowääh" (2011). For her performance in Matti Geschonneck’s social drama "Boxhagener Platz" ("Berlin, Boxhagener Platz", 2010), she received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the German Film Awards in spring 2011. 

Becker showed her more eccentric side in the comedy "Fliegende Fische müssen ins Meer", playing a quirky single mother who takes on the youth welfare office with her children. In the television drama "Die Lehrerin" (TV, 2011), she gave a powerful performance as a teacher who becomes the victim of a school shooting.

Under the direction of Oskar Roehler, she joined the star-studded cast of the 2012 family saga "Quellen des Lebens" ("Roots of Life"), playing the unhappy wife of a successful postwar German entrepreneur. In the film adaptation of the bestselling novel "Feuchtgebiete" ("Wetlands", 2013), she portrayed the neurotic mother of the main character. That same year, Becker appeared alongside Hannah Herzsprung and Marie Bäumer in Vivian Naefe's family drama "Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen" ("The Taste of Apple Seeds").

She later took on roles in a Munich Tatort episode and the TV fairytale film "Die kleine Meerjungfrau," in which she played the sea witch Mydra alongside her brother, Ben Becker. In February 2014, it was announced that she and Mark Waschke would form the new Berlin detective team in "Tatort." Their first case, "Das Muli," aired in March 2015. 

For her role as a controlling dentist faced with a web of lies in Vanessa Jopp's comedy "Lügen und andere Wahrheiten" ("Lies and Other Truth", 2014), Becker earned another nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the German Film Awards in 2015. 

In 2014, she released her music album "Deins & Done." In 2016, she was awarded the "Berliner Bär" – a cultural honorary prize from the Berlin tabloid B.Z.. The following year, she appeared in the British production "A Change in the Weather," playing the wife of a theatre director who gathers an ensemble in a remote mountain location. 

After a few smaller TV films, Becker returned to the big screen in "Wer hat eigentlich die Liebe erfunden?" ("Cloud Whispers", 2018), contributing not only as an actress but also to the film's music score. That same year, she starred in the TV drama "Meta," which went on to receive the prestigious Grimme Special Award for Fiction. In 2019, she appeared in the popular "Ostwind" horse-film franchise with "Ostwind - Aris Ankunft" ("Windstorm 4 – Ari’s Arrival").

In autumn 2019, she performed in the western-themed musical cabaret show "Die 5 glorreichen Sieben" alongside Anna Fischer, Anna Mateur, Andreja Schneider, and Katharina Thalbach. The show was staged at Berlin's Bar jeder Vernunft. 

From 2017 to 2019, Becker served as a deputy board member of the German Film Academy's acting section. She had already been among the founding members in 2003 and part of its first board. In 2019, she was reappointed as a full board member. For her outstanding performance as the bold and seductive Irene Moll in Dominik Graf's "Fabian oder Der Gang vor die Hunde" ("Fabian – Going to the Dogs", 2021), she was again nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the German Film Awards. 

Alongside her regular role in the "Tatort" series - whose 13th case, "Die dritte Haut", aired in 2021 - Becker has also regularly lent her voice to Milla Jovovich in the German dubs of the "Resident Evil" franchise and the film "Monster Hunter" (2021). 

In 2022, Meret Becker received the Emden Actor Award at the Emden Film Festival in recognition of her outstanding acting achievements. That same year, she bid farewell to her popular "Tatort" role in the episode "Das Mädchen, das allein nach Haus' geht." She then took on the role of a strict zoo director in Veit Helmer's children's film "Akiko, der fliegende Affe" ("Akiko – The Flying Monkey"), which was released in 2025 and went on to win the German Film Award for Best Children's Film.

Before that, she had appeared in the ensemble of the Netflix mystery series "Das Signal" ("The Signal", 2024). At the Festival of German Film in Ludwigshafen, she received the Ludwigshafen Award together with Luise Landau for their performances as a grumpy grandmother-granddaughter duo in the 2024 TV film "Familie is nich."