Born in Teheran on June 8th 1967 to an Iranian father and a German mother, Jasmin Tabatabai fled with her mother to Bavaria after the Khomeini Revolution. Studying at the Stuttgart University for Music and the Arts from 1988 to 1992, she made her film debut in "Kinder der Landstraße" ("Child on the Open Road", 1992). Her breakthrough came in 1997 with "Bandits" (for which she also composed the soundtrack), followed by salient roles in "Gierig" ("Greedy", 1998) and "Late Show" (1998).

She was the front singer in the all-girl band "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", played a chanson singer in the movie adaptation of Tucholsky"s "Schloss Gripsholm" ("Gripsholm", 2000), and sang the part of Ulrike Meinhof in "Alzheimer 2000" at the Bonn Opera House. Her first solo album "Only Love" was released in 2002, followed in 2007 by "I Ran".

After the birth of her daughter in 2002, Tabatabai is seen in much less movies, but has a sort of comeback in 2005 with the lead role in the critically acclaimed "Fremde Haut" ("Unveiled"). Afterwards, she plays roles in films like "Elementarteilchen" ("Elementary Particles", 2006), "Vier Minuten" ("Four Minutes", 2006), "Meine schöne Bescherung" ("Messy Christmas") and "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" ("Baader Meinhof Complex", 2008), followed by another lead role in the international co-production "Altiplano".

In 2011, she released her first solo album, "Eine Frau," with German-language songs in jazz and swing style. Meanwhile, she made herself scarce again as an actress. In 2012, Tabatabai took on the regular role of chief detective Mina Amiri in the ZDF crime series "Letzte Spur Berlin". Otherwise, however, she was seen until 2015 only in a leading role as a shady carny in the fairy tale film "Beutolomäus und die Wunderflöte" (2011) and in occasional series guest roles, such as in "Unter Verdacht" (2011) and "Danni Lowinski" (2013).   

It wasn't until 2015 that Tabatabai began appearing more frequently in feature films again. She played a teacher in "Fack ju Göhte 2" ("Suck Me Shakespeer 2", 2015), a mother in the coming-of-age story "Strawberry Bubblegums" (2016, TV), the doctor of a girl with asthma in the youth film "Amelie rennt" ("Mountain Miracle", 2017) and a colleague of the main character (Katja Riemann) in the family drama "Goliath96" (2018).   

In May 2016, Tabatabai's second solo album, "Was sagt man zu den Menschen, wenn man traurig ist?" was released; it was followed in 2020 by "Jagd auf Rehe," which features newly arranged songs by Reinhard Mey, Franz Schubert, Hildegard Knef, the Beatles, Annie Lennox and Nick Drake, among others.   

In fall 2021, Katja von Garnier's "Fly" opened in theaters, with Tabatabai in a central role as the director of a dance project in a prison. This was followed by the drama "Mitra" (DE/NL/DK 2020), in which Tabatabai starred as a 70-year-old ex-Iranian woman who tracks down a compatriot in Holland who was responsible for the death of her daughter in Iran.  

In addition, Jasmin Tabatabai continues to be part of the ensemble of "Letzte Spur Berlin" on television.