Von Brandenstein began in film in 1972, first getting screen credit as a set decorator on the acclaimed drama "The Candidate" (1972). She worked as a scenic artist and later a costume designer, with credits including "Between the Lines" and "Saturday Night Fever" (both 1977). Working with Wurtzel on Joan Micklin Silver's turn-of-the-century immigrant tale "Hester Street" (1975), meanwhile, helped von Brandenstein to move into art direction. Soon she was designing sets for films as varied as the charming teen comedy-drama "Breaking Away" (1979), and Milos Forman's lavish turn-of-the-century period recreation "Ragtime" (1981), for which she received her first Oscar nomination.
By the early 80s von Brandenstein was a full-fledged production designer, assuming supervisory capacities and laying out much of the visual texture of her films. An early gem was the striking, black-and-white "Heartland" (1980), a domestic drama set in the Old West. A second film with Forman, "Amadeus" (1984), brought von Brandenstein an Oscar for her vividly detailed rendering of the age of Mozart. Her most frequent directorial collaborator, though, has been Mike Nichols. Beginning with the riveting biopic "Silkwood" (1983) and rejoining Nichols for the less successful but interesting "Working Girls" (1988) and "Postcards from the Edge" (1990), von Brandenstein has shown both imagination and a sense of verisimilitude in her crisp designs. Von Brandenstein has also distinguished herself with her work on Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables" (1987), the teen musical "Beat Street" (1984), the high society comedy-drama of "Six Degrees of Separation" (1993), and a return to the West for "The Quick and the Dead" (1995).