Jérôme d’Estais was born in Paris, and lives in Berlin, where he is correspondent for the film magazine La Septième Obsession. He has written several books on filmmakers as diverse as Jean Eustache, Andrzej Zulawski, Barbet Schroeder, Hal Hartley, Jeff Nichols, Kathryn Bigelow, Leos Carax, Ira Sachs and Paul Schrader. He has also written a history of French cinema from the perspective of a politics of actors. He is also the author of several novels. He received the Prix Transfuge for the best film book of 2021 for his essay on Leos Carax.

He is a member of the German Critics Association (vdFk), Fipresci and the International Cinephile Society (ICS).