Peter Kurth, born April 4, 1957, in Güstrow, attended Staatliche Schauspielschule Rostock from 1978 to 1981. From 1981 to 1984, he was a cast member of Theater für junge Leute in Magdeburg. He subsequently performed at Theater der Altmark in Stendal until 1988, before he went to Städtisches Theater Karl-Marx-Stadt, later Chemnitz, where he stayed until 1997. From 1997 to 2000, Kurth was a cast member of Schauspiel Leipzig. Since 2000, he is a member of the cast of Hamburg's Thalia Theater. Furthermore, Kurth is the head of academic year for acting at Schauspielschule Leipzig. In 2004, Kurth received the Rita Tanck Glaser award.

From the 2000s on, Kurth also appeared in numerous roles in TV productions, for instance in the TV series "Tatort", "Großstadtrevier", and "Schimanski". Kurth entered the movie screen, for instance, in "Wolfsburg" and in "Gespenster" ("Ghosts"), both directed by Christian Petzold, in Nicolai Rohde's "Zwischen Nacht und Tag" ("Between Night and Day"), or in Till Endemann's "Kometen" ("Comets") and "Das Lächeln der Tiefseefische" ("The Smile of the Monsterfish"). In "Hallesche Kometen", directed by Susanne Irina Zacharias, he made a memorable performance as a father who is despaired about his life.

Notwithstanding his success on the big screen, Kurth returned to television in the following years. He featured prominently as a colleague of an aging professional diver in Niki Stein's award-winning drama "Der Mann im Strom" (2006), as a US undercover agent in Carlo Rola's Simmel adaptation "Und Jimmy ging zum Regenbogen" (2008), as an old friend of a former cop in the crime film "Frösche petzen nicht" (2010), and as the spouse of a teacher who has been shot by a student in Aelrun Goette's drama "Ein Jahr nach morgen" (2012). He could also be seen in TV series, playing minor roles in "KDD – Kriminaldauerdienst", "Nachtschicht" and "Großstadtrevier". From 2011 to 2015 Kurth featured in "Tatort" episodes as Frankfurt detective Erik Seidel.

At the movies he played the irritated boss of a car rental company in Sebastian Schipper's buddy flick "Ein Freund von mir" ("A Friend Of Mine", 2006). In the tragicomedy "AlleAlle" (2007) he showed up as another buddy character, whereas in a segment of the omnibus film "1. Mai" ("Berlin – 1st of Mai", 2008) he embodied a former member of the student revolts in the late sixties who has an unusual encounter with an eleven-year-old Turkish boy.

Kurth then starred in Florian Eichinger's family drama "Bergfest" (2008) as an aging theater director facing a difficult relationship with his son. After bit parts in the pirate film "Zwölf Meter ohne Kopf" ("12 Paces Without a Head", 2009) and the film-business comedy "Whisky mit Wodka" ("Whisky with Vodka", 2009) Kurth featured in Thomas Arslan's "Im Schatten" ("In the Shadows", 2010) as a brutal Berlin gangster, a central character. He also featured in important roles in the tragicomedies "Lena will es endlich wissen" (2011) and "Einer wie Bruno" ("Someone Like Him", 2011) as a mourning widower and striving actress's father and as two-sided colleague of a disabled man, respectively. In 2013, Peter Kurth was again cast in a Thomas Arslan film: In the western "Gold" he played the dubious organizer of a treck headed for the Klondike. The same year, he appeared in Wolfgang Becker's "Ich & Kaminski" ("Me & Kaminski") as well as in the dark comedy "Die Kleinen und die Bösen" ("The Small And The Wicked") where he stars as petty criminal Hotte whose life is turned upside down by his probation officer. Both films were released theatrically in 2015, as well as the comedy "Schmitke", which saw Kurth in the title role of a grumpy engineer with the mission to repair a wind turbine deep in the Czech Woods where he blunders into surreal events.

Since the 2013/14 season, Kurth is a member of the ensemble of Schauspiel Stuttgart and in 2014 he was named "Actor of the Year" by the readers of the professional journal "Theater heute". In 2016, Peter Kurth played an aging former boxing champion in "Herbert" ("A Heavy Heart"), who faced with a severe illness, wants to come clean with his daughter. For his powerful yet sensitive performance under the direction of Thomas Stuber, he was awarded with the German Film Award in May 2016 as well as with the German Actor's Award.

In September 2016, Andrei Konchalovsky's "Paradies" ("Paradise", RU/DE) with Kurth in the role of a sadistic SS officer, premiered at the International Film Festival in Venice. In Lars Henning's "Zwischen den Jahren" ("End of the Season", DE/FR 2017), he starred in the lead role as a murderer, who after his release from prison is chased by his victim's late husband and father. In the award-winning TV series "Babylon Berlin" (2017), he played one of the lead roles as a policeman. Again under the direction of Thomas Stuber, Peter Kurth appeared in the drama "In den Gängen" ("In the Aisles"), playing the main character's fatherly friend. The film premiered at the Berlin IFF 2018 and was released in German cinemas in May that same year.

Also in 2018, he was nominated for the German Actor's Award and the German Television Award for his performance in "Babylon Berlin"; together with the main team of the series, he received the Grimme Award.   

Thomas Stuber's stylized and allusive TV movie "Angriff auf Wache 08" (2019) from the "Tatort" series, in which Kurth embodied an aging police officer, also received much critical praise. On the big screen, he could be seen in 2019 in the highly acclaimed GDR drama "Und der Zukunft zugewandt" ("Sealed Lips") as the SED secretary for agitprop and propaganda.   

He had other TV roles as an investigator in the crime drama "Im Abgrund" (2020), as a meat company owner in the award-winning village thriller "Sörensen hat Angst" (2020) directed by and starring Bjarne Mädel, and as a widower in the two-part family chronicle "Altes Land" (2020). Detlev Buck cast him as a village gun nut in the black crime comedy "Wir können nicht anders" ("Christmas Crossfire", 2020), which was released directly on Netflix because of the Corona pandemic. In Daniel Brühl's directorial debut "Nebenan" ("Next Door"), which premiered at the 2021 Berlinale, Kurth starred as a pub regular who takes out his life frustrations on a prominent actor. The film opened in theaters in summer 2021.   

From 2021, Peter Kurth was part of the investigative team Koitzsch and Lehmann in the Hallens episodes of the series "Polizeiruf 110 ". Despite this regular series role, Kurth continued to appear in other productions. He won a Bavarian TV Award for his role in the TV-drama "Ferdinand von Schirach - Glauben" and was part of the ensemble of Thomas Stuber’s "Die stillen Trabanten" ("Dark Satellites," 2022) as a security guard. He also played a fairground operator in the children’s film "Spuk unterm Riesenrad" ("Ghosts under the Ferris Wheel," 2024), and portrayed a resourceful East German in the reunification comedy "Zwei zu eins" ("Two to One," 2024), who dreams of striking it rich after discovering old East German marks. Alongside Charly Hübner, Kurth appeared as a farmer in the rural comedy "Micha denkt groß" (2024, TV) and took on the title role in the social comedy "Der Held vom Bahnhof Friedrichstraße" (released in 2025).