Ernst Stötzner was born in 1952. From 1974 until 1976, he studied acting in Frankfurt and then became a company player at the Schaubühne in Berlin. Over the years, he also performed at the Deutsche Schauspielhaus in Hamburg, the Berliner Ensemble, the Burgtheater in Vienna and the Deutsche Theater in Berlin.

Since the late 1980s, Stötzner has also been working as a director and staged numerous productions, for instance at the Schauspielhaus Zurich and the Schauspielhaus Bochum. In 2002, he was named Best Actor of North Rhine Westphalia, and in 2007, he received the Gertrud-Eysoldt-Ring for his performance as Puck in the production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Deutsche Theater, Berlin.

Stötzner began appearing in feature films in the mid-1980s. One of his first major screen roles was in Bernhard Wicki's "Das Spinnennetz" (1989), and from the mid-1990s on, he also regularly starred in TV productions.

Stötzner had memorable turns as a strict father in "Die Einsamkeit der Krokodile" (2000), as the lover of a female police detective in "This is Love" (2009) and as a business lawyer in "Die kommenden Tage" (2010). In 2013, he was nominated for a German Film Award for his portrayal of a philandering husband in Hans-Christian Schmid's "Was bleibt" (2012).