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Alexander Ernst Kluge (14 February 1932 – 25 March 2026) was a German author, film director, academic and founder of a television production company.

After studies with Theodor W. Adorno in Frankfurt, he worked as an assistant to Fritz Lang for The Tiger of Eschnapur. He directed his first film, Brutality in Stone, in 1960, a short montage dealing with the Nazi past. He became instrumental in New German Cinema, establishing an institute for film at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm. Among his signature films were Artists under the Big Top: Perplexed in 1968 and The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time in 1985. In 1987 Kluge founded the television production company DCTP, producing for private television.

As an author, he focused on short stories. His major works of social criticism include Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung, translated as Public Sphere and Experience, co-written with Oskar Negt and first published in 1972. He was a professor in Frankfurt from 1973. Kluge received major literary awards including the Georg Büchner Prize and the Grimme-Preis for his lifetime achievements for television.