Haneke's first films were his "glaciation" trilogy, consisting of The Seventh Continent (1989), Benny's Video (1992), and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994), each of which depict a "coldly bureaucratic society in which genuine human relationships have been supplanted by a deep-seated collective malaise" and explore "the relationship among consumerism, violence, mass media, and contemporary alienation".

Haneke showed a strong interest in literature and music, but as an adolescent developed a "downright contempt for any form of school".

He had ambitions of becoming an actor in his youth, later abandoning these plans after failing an entrance examination at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.

[7] He then directed two more television films, Three Paths to the Lake (1976), about a war photo journalist who faces a moral crisis when she is forced to examine the implications of her work, and another telefilm Sperrmüll (1976).

[8] In 1979 he directed two episodes of Lemminge followed by Variation – oder Daß es Utopien gibt, weiß ich selber!

In 1986 he directed Fraulein: A German Melodrama which was described as Haneke's answer to Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun.

[9] Haneke wanted to make a film about German history that doesn't drown in self-pity and yet still attracts the public".

[10] A few years later he would make the experimental tele-documentary film Nachruf für einen Mörder about a young Austrian who provoked a hideous bloodbath in Vienna.

[11] Haneke's feature film debut was 1989's The Seventh Continent, which served to trace out the violent and bold style that would bloom in later years.

[13] His third film in the trilogy is entitled, 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994), Manohla Dargis's The New York Times called it an "An icy-cool study of violence both mediated and horribly real", adding "For Mr. Haneke, the point seems less that evil is commonplace than that we don't engage with it as thinking, actively moral beings.

The plot involves two young men who hold a family hostage and torture them with sadistic games in their vacation home.

"[16] Haneke has directed a number of stage productions in German, which include works by Strindberg, Goethe, and Heinrich von Kleist in Berlin, Munich and Vienna.

The film starred Isabelle Huppert as a sexually repressed piano teacher who soon becomes involved with a younger man.

Denby concluded, "[the film] is a seriously scandalous work, beautifully made, and it deserves a sizable audience that might argue over it, appreciate it—even hate it.

[20] In 2006 he gave his debut as an opera director, staging Mozart's Don Giovanni for the Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier when the theater's general manager was Gerard Mortier.

[22] Ella Tayor of NPR praised the film describing it as "Touching and tragic" adding "Haneke implicates us in the full range of human capacity".

[25] This production had originally been commissioned by Jürgen Flimm for the Salzburg Festival 2009, but Haneke had to resign due to an illness preventing him from preparing the work.

Wilkinson added, " challenges its audience to pay attention to put together the story, then, is as much an aesthetic statement about how to watch a movie as a political one.

[33][34] Haneke is known for directing films which are often unsentimental and uses disturbing imagery to explore social critiques on issues such as class, race, gender, and violence.

The Museum of Modern Art showcased his films in 2007 adding that they feature themes "of alienation and social collapse; the exploitation and consumption of violence; the bourgeois family as the incubator of fascistic impulse; individual responsibility and collective guilt; and the ethics of the photographic image".

Haneke prefers to let his scenes unfold slowly, allowing the audience to fully experience the tension and emotion of each moment.

[39] He lists more than 100 films, quoting several works by directors Ingmar Bergman (Persona, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, Scenes from a Marriage, The Silence) and Abbas Kiarostami (Where Is the Friend's House?, Through the Olive Trees, And Life Goes On, Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us).

His directorial debut, The Seventh Continent, won the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1989.