He was born on 28 August 1943 in Istanbul. In the Çan-Yenice centered earthquake that occurred on March 18, 1953, his family lost their home and spent twenty days in the tent. Meanwhile, her older sister, Ayten Dündar, who was two years older than her, who had rheumatoid arthritis due to cold and snow and did not respond to treatment, lost her heart rheumatism at the age of 22. Uğur Dündar, who attended Çanakkale High School for a while, returned to Istanbul with his family and settled in the district of Karagümrük after his father was appointed as a commissioner in 1958. During these years, he met Müjdat Gezen, who he calls "my oldest friend", who lived in the same neighborhood, and they have maintained their friendship ever since.

After graduating from Vefa High School (1961), he graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Communication, Journalism Institute. One of his teachers here is Milliyet newspaper director Abdi İpekçi, who died as a result of his assassination.

After his military service, he knocked on Milliyet's door again, but was hired because of the staff shortage. Although he started to work in Etibank's Banking Intelligence Directorate as a result of the exams he took, he became a pharmaceutical representative with an offer he received. However, he decided that the job here was not for him and left the job. He worked at the Turkish Industrial Development Bank for a short time, but his mind was always on the TRT exams to be opened.

Finally, in March 1970, he passed the exam opened by TRT in the same year and started to work as a television producer and became a writer for the Official Gazette. In the same year, he attended the BBC's "Television Production-Management" course in England. After returning to Turkey, he made various television programs in TRT as producer, director and presenter.

He worked at TRT for more than 19 years. Uğur Dündar, who became a Hürriyet columnist in 1986, is the person who started investigative television journalism in Turkey.

Uğur Dündar, who moved to Show TV in 1992, evaluated the cinema offer made by Selim Soydan, the owner of Gülşah Film, by playing journalist Uğur Dündar in the movie "Here is Life". Here he acted with Hülya Koçyiğit and Adile Naşit. He continued his ties with cinema by taking part in various subsequent productions.

Uğur Dündar, also in this period, joined Yasemin Baradan in 1993 when he starred in the movie "Here is Life" and became the father of three children.

After Hürriyet was sold to Aydın Doğan in 1994, he said goodbye to Show TV in 1995 and moved to Kanal D. In 2000, he returned to Show TV and moved to Star TV. He became the News Editor-in-Chief at Star TV and became a Star writer after he moved to Star TV. In 2001, he worked for Kiss TV and Sabah Newspaper. In 2002, he switched to ATV and went back to Star TV, becoming a Star writer again. Then he switched to Kanal D again. In 2004, he made a joint broadcast with CNN Turk.

In 2008, Uğur Dündar last served as the Editor-in-Chief of Star News and presented the main news bulletin. He worked for Hürriyet again in 2010. Uğur Dündar, who has signed many programs until today, was the general director of the news program Arena. It has won many awards with its Arena program, which has been following the agenda of the country for years.

In 2011, Star TV said goodbye to Star TV after it was sold to Doğuş Group. He also taught postgraduate courses in "Television Programming" at Istanbul University and Marmara University.

He transferred to Milliyet for a short time in 2012. Later, he was transferred to Sözcü by his friend Emin Çölaşan. He presented a short-term main news bulletin on Artı Bir Tv, which he started in March 2013.

Uğur Dündar is still a columnist for Sözcü newspaper and prepares and presents the Public Arena program on Halk TV. Uğur Dündar, who also served as the chairman of the broadcasting council at Halk Tv for a while, announced in September 2018 that he had resigned from this position and would focus on the Public Arena program.