[citation needed] After the Machtergreifung of the Nazi Party in 1933 his father, a social democrat lost his job and was unemployed for several years.

[1] In 1952 Frank Beyer began to study drama at Humboldt University in Berlin, but transferred to the Film School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague shortly afterwards.

He completed another internship as an assistant director for a film adapted from the opera Zar und Zimmermann and directed by Hans Müller.

In his fourth year of studies, in 1957, he worked as an assistant director for Kurt Maetzig's two part film Schlösser und Katen with a special permission of his university.

His second feature film Eine alte Liebe based on a story by Werner Reinowski and released in 1958 did not follow the success of his directorial debut Zwei Mütter.

The film was based on a screenplay by Walter Gorrish and tells the story of the members of an international brigade during the Spanish Civil War.

The 1962 film Star-Crossed Lovers was again based on a screenplay by Walter Gorrish and told the story of the antifascist activist Michael who has to serve in a penal military unit on the Eastern Front during World War II, and escapes with the help of his childhood friend Jürgen.

Deserting to the Red army he hopes to meet his childhood friend and love Magdalena in Moscow, as she had fled from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union.

The film told the story of prisoners in the Buchenwald concentration camp who risk their lives to hide a jewish boy, Stefan Jerzy Zweig.

The television film Der Geizige after the play The Miser by Molière was realized with the cast of the State Theater in Dresden.

The film, which concentrates on the private and romantic life of a young woman, generated debates on marriage, relationships and socialist moral across the country.

[1] His first theatrical film after almost ten years was Jacob the Liar in 1975, adapted from a novel by Jurek Becker and a co-production of the DEFA studios and East German television.

[1] In 1977 he directed the romantic comedy Das Versteck [de] again based on a screenplay by Jurek Becker and starring Jutta Hoffmann and Manfred Krug.

Shortly before the completion of the production the East German government stripped the singer and dissident Wolf Biermann of his citizenship while he was on a concert tour in West Germany.

Frank Beyer, Jurek Becker and the lead actors signed a letter protesting the actions of the East German government.

Because the lead actor Manfred Krug had applied for permission to leave East Germany, the film was shelved and not shown in theaters.

For the West German public broadcaster ARD he directed the television films Der König und sein Narr [de] and The Second Skin in 1981.

[4] In 1983 he directed the road movie Bockshorn [de] which was shot in the USA and in Cuba and was not very successful at the box office after the theatrical release in 1984.

Together with the screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase he wrote the script to the criminal-comedy film The Break [de] based on a true event from post-war Berlin.

[5] He adapted a story by Jurek Becker in 1995 in Wenn alle Deutschen schlafen and had a major popular and critical success with the Nikolaikirche in 1995.

In 1998 he directed Abgehauen, a film about the circumstances of the deprivation of Wolf Biermann's citizenship and the departure of Manfred Krug from East Germany.

Under his name Alexander Reed he became an actor, and had minor roles in two of his father's films, Der Hauptmann von Köpenick in 1997 and Abgehauen in 1998.