[5] His "total cinema" films were predominantly produced by Das kleine Fernsehspiel ("The Little Television Play"), a small experimental department of the German public-service station.

The Reign of Naples [it] marked the director's shift toward more plot-driven films, commenting: "it is much more radical to play with the content than with the aesthetics of the image.

As an actor, he appeared in several films directed by his friend Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), and a number of theatre productions.

During the second half of the 1980s, Schroeter became widely known as a theater and opera director both in Germany and abroad, returning to filmmaking in 1990 with Malina, a literary adaptation starring Isabelle Huppert based on Ingeborg Bachmann's novel.

In 2011 a documentary about the director was made by Elfi Mikesch, a close friend and collaborator, entitled Mondo Lux: The Visual Worlds of Werner Schroeter[3] In 2016 he was awarded posthumously with the Traetta Prize for his work in the rediscovery of the roots of European music.

In the late 1970s, Schroeter met Irish artist Reginald Gray at a collection of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris.