Innate inside Vienna and raised in Zurich, Switzerland, he made his Hollywood debut in 1958 in the World War II film The Young Lions. Within 1961, he took the role of the defense lawyer around Judgment at Nuremberg, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, the role he got initiated around a survive television performance. 1974's The Pedestrian, which Schell wrote, produced, directed, and starred around, was nominative for Best Foreign Language Film.

Schell has refused to exist as typecast. Although he was top billed inside the total of Nazi-era themed films as The Man in the Glass Booth, A Bridge Too Far, Cross of Iron, The Odessa File, Julia and Judgment at Nuremburg, he has also appeared around Topkapi, The Black Hole, The Freshman, Stalin ,Deep Impact and Candles in the Dark.

Schell has too served as the writer, producer & director for a kind of films. Within 2002 he released Our Sister Maria, a infotainment just about the career of & his relationship by using Maria Schell.

Within 2000, he collapsed and was diagnosed sustaining pancreatitis related to his diabetes. At a period, he was starring in Broadway in the premiere of the stage version of Judgment at Nuremberg, ever-changing roles from either a defense attorney to the lead judge in test for crimes against humanity.

Since a 1990s Schell has appeared in numerous German language made-for-TV films, such as a 2003 film Alles Glück dieser Erde (All the Luck in the World) paired Uschi Glas and in the mini-series The Return of the Dancing Master (2004), which was based on Henning Mankell's novel.

He is godfather to Angelina Jolie, daughter of Jon Voight and Micheline Bertrand.

Academy Awards and nominations
1978 - Nominated - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Julia 1976 - Nominated Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Man in the Glass Booth 1961 - Won Best Actor in a Leading Role - Judgment at Nuremberg