[4] Hermanus graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Film, Media, and Visual Studies from the University of Cape Town.
[5] While working for "The Argus", a mutual friend introduced Hermanus to award-winning German director Roland Emmerich who played a crucial role in Hermanus's career by giving him a private scholarship to attend the London Film School,[5] where he earned his master's degree in film.
[7] Shirley Adams, Hermanus's first film, released in 2009, relates the story of a single mother raising her paraplegic son, who was injured during a gang fight.
[6] Hermanus has stated that he got the idea for the film from his sister, an occupational therapist, who told him the story of a teenage boy paralysed in a shooting incident.
[13] Beauty relates the story of François, a married, closeted, middle-aged Afrikaner, who becomes obsessed with a handsome young lawyer, Christian (played by Charlie Keegan), the son of one of his friends.
[14] Beauty was critically praised for being an "unvarnished study of the turbulence of the middle-aged male psyche, but it also addresses the current Afrikaner condition".
[18] The film is set in the small town of Riviersonderend in the Overberg region of South Africa and relates the story of a French expatriate and a small-town waitress who form a bond after the brutal murder of his family on a farm.
[19] In describing Endless River, Hermanus explained, "I wanted to combine in my film a place I'm familiar with the story of violence happening in South Africa".
[20] The lead character, Nicholas van der Swart (played by Kai Luke Brümmer), and fellow recruit Stassen (Ryan de Villiers), share a mutual attraction but must make their sexuality invisible to avoid being viciously humiliated and brutalised.
[25] In October 2020, it was announced that Hermanus would direct Living, his first non-South African film, starring Bill Nighy and Aimee Lou Wood.
At the end of October 2021, it was announced Hermanus would adapt Ben Shattuck's short story starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal.