Michael Stuhlbarg was born in Long Beach, California, attended UCLA, then The Juilliard School, graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts as a member of Group 21.

From the early Nineties up until 2008, Stuhlbarg worked primarily in New York theater, appearing on Broadway in  award-winning productions like Sam Mendes' Cabaret with Alan Cumming, Tom Stoppard's The Invention of Love with Robert Sean Leonard and Richard Easton; in Ronald Harwood's Taking Sides with Ed Harris and Daniel Massey, and in Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, with Billy Crudup, Jeff Goldblum, and Zeljko Ivanek, which earned him a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, and a Tony nomination.

His numerous Off-Broadway credits include the title roles in Hamlet and Richard II with the Public Theater's New York Shakespeare Festival, and David Mamet's adaptation of The Voysey Inheritance with the Atlantic Theater Company, which earned him an OBIE.

Stuhlbarg's first major film role was as Larry Gopnik in Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. His first major television role came in HBO and Martin Scorsese's period drama, Boardwalk Empire, in which he played the organized crime figure Arnold Rothstein. He has since been nominated twice for Primetime Emmys, playing Richard Clarke in The Looming Tower and Dr. Richard Sackler in Dopesick.

In 2018, he had the distinction of appearing in three films all of which
were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture in the same season: Luca Guadagnino and James Ivory's Call Me By Your Name,
Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water, and Steven Spielberg's The Post, with del Toro's The Shape of Water being awarded the Oscar.

He has continued to appear regularly in a number of high-profile projects in recent years, including Peter Moffat and Edward Berger's Your Honor with Bryan Cranston, Doug Liman's The Instigators with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, and the Broadway Premiere of Peter Morgan's Patriots with Will Keen and Luke Thallon, for which he received his second Tony nomination.

Coming soon, he will be seen in Luca Guadagnino's film, After the Hunt, with Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Andrew Garfield, and in the next untitled Alejandro G. Iñárritu film with Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, and Jesse Plemons.