Born in 1965. He lived in Georgia until the 1990s, and from school age worked on both the main and small stages of the Rustaveli Theatre in productions such as HAMLET (Hamlet), THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (Shylock), THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK and so on.

Film: Ninidze’s first film role was in Tengiz Abuladze’s film REPENTANCE (1984, winner of three prizes at the 40th Cannes Film Festival). Since then he has appeared in films by many Georgian directors. At the same time he has been active in Russian cinema since 1999, taking major roles in Aleksei German’s PAPER SOLDIER and UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS, Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov’s LUNA PAPA, Rezo Gigineishvili’s LOVE WITH AN ACCENT and so on.

In 1993 he emigrated from Georgia to Europe, and today he lives in Vienna, Austria. For the last 20 years he has been in continuous employment in English and German language films and television serials. In 2002 the film NOWHERE IN AFRICA (dir. Caroline Link) received the highest award of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – THE OSCAR. Merab Ninidze plays the main role in the film. In addition to his Oscar, Ninidze has received several European and Russian prizes. Films in which he has participated are shown in CANNES, BERLIN, and other European film festivals every year.

He has appeared in numerous German films by various directors. His recent works are LOU ANDREAS SALOME (Rätselleben) (dir. Cordula Kablitz) (2016), Steven Spielberg’s film BRIDGE OF SPIES (2015), TV series  BERLIN STATION (2015).

In 2017 he took part in BERLINALE film festival with two new Georgian movies – HOSTAGES (dir. Rezo Gigineishvili) and MY HAPPY FAMILY (this last one, directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross, got several prizes in different film festivals around the world). In May 2017 Hungarian film and theatre director’s Kornel Mundruczo’s new movie JUPITER’S MOON participated in a main competition line in CANNES film festival. In the end of September Merab Ninidze got a prize for this film in Batumi international film festival (nomination “The best Actor 2017”). In 2017 Ninidze started acting in TV series "McMafia". Broadcast of series starts in 2018 January on BBC an ABC channels.

Merab Ninidze’s autobiographical novel EVERYWHERE, EVEN IN AFRICA was published by INTELEKTI PUBLISHING in 2015.