Daniel Alfredson was born on May 23, 1959 in Stockholm, Sweden. He got practical film experience between 1981 and 1992 working as an assistant director to his father, actor and director Hans Alfredson. He gave his own directorial debut in 1992 directing an episode of the Swedish crime series "Kvällspressen". The following year, he realized his first feature film, the mystery thriller "Mannen på Balkongen" ("The Man on the Balcony", SE/DE 1993), for which he received the Swedish Film Award 'Guldbagge Award'. The thriller "Tic Tac" (SE 1997) won Alfredson a Guldbagge Award for Best Director and was awarded further prizes at several festivals. In addition, Alfredson over the years directed several TV films and various episodes of TV series.

Daniel Alfredson received international recognition through the much acclaimed Stieg Larsson adaptations "Flickan som lekte med elden" ("The Girl Who Played With Fire", SE/DK/DE 2009) and "Luftslottet som sprängdes" ("The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest", SE/DK/DE 2009), which were released as feature films and later also as multi-part TV films. Following the success of this work, Alfredson realized several international co-productions, including two films with Anthony Hopkins: the crime drama "Kidnapping Mr. Heineken" (GB/NL/BE/US 2015), which is based on true events and the thriller "Go with Me" (US 2015).

The German production "Intrigo: Tod eines Autors" ("Intrigo: Death of an Author", 2018), which was directed by Alfredson is based on a novel by Håkan Nesser as are the thrillers "Intrigo: Samaria" (SE/US/DE 2018) and "Intrigo: Dear Agnes" (SE/US/DE 2018) that he worked for subsequently.