Gerd Oswald was born on June 9, 1919, in Berlin, as the son of director and producer Richard Oswald. Early on, he followed his father into the movie business and became his assistant after the family fled Nazi Germany. He then assisted his father Richard Oswald during the exile with a series of films in Austria, England, France and the Netherlands. In 1938, Gerd Oswald cut the family ties and became an assistant director for several low-budget US movies but soon returned to his father. Gerd Oswald then was his father's assistant for the US movies "I Was a Criminal" und "Isle of Missing Men".

In 1942, he went to Paramount and worked with Billy Wilder, William Dieterle, and Cecil B. DeMille among others. Subsequently, he worked as an assistant director, executive producer, test shot director, associate producer, or second unit director for 20th Century Fox. Oswald also went to Europe for Centfox and worked for Elia Kazan's "Man on a Tightrope" (1953) which gained him a seven-year contract as a director in 1954.

His directorial debut was the thriller "A Kiss Before Dying" (1956), one of the first movies released in the CinemaScope format. In the following years, Oswald made his name as an experienced director of genre films like "Crime of Passion" starring Barbara Stanwyck. Oswald also directed TV productions like the series "The 20th Century Hour". In 1959, Oswald temporarily returned to Europe and directed "Der Tag als der Regen kam" ("The Day It Rained"), a film produced by Artur Brauner with Mario Adorf in the leading role.

His adaptation of Stefan Zweig's story "Die Schachnovelle" with Curd Jürgens in the leading role was criticised as thematically inappropriate and too "conventionally driven for effect". After his return to the USA, Oswald made several documentary films and directed numerous episodes of TV series like "Bonanza", "Perry Mason", or the science fiction series "Outer Limits" und "Star Trek" (first season 1966/67). Oswald's last movie was the adaptation of Simmel's novel "Bis zur bitteren Neige" ("To the Bitter End") in 1975 but he still worked for television in the following years.

On May 22, 1989, Gerd Oswald died of cancer in Los Angeles.