Walter or Walther Ruttmann (December 28, 1887, Frankfurt am Main, July 15, 1941, Berlin) was a film director, a screenwriter, a cinematographer and an editor.

Ruttmann created an impressionistic symphony with his experimental portrait of Berlin in 1927 Berlin, "Die Sinfonie der Großstadt". Before becoming a filmmaker in the early twenties while releasing advertising and animation films, Ruttmann was a painter and an architect.

His unique musical composition, "Weekend", is a pioneering work from the early days of radio, commissioned in 1928 by Berlin Radio Hour. In a collage of words, music fragments and sounds, Walter Ruttmann built a radically innovative radio work (Hörspiel) designed as an acoustic film portraiting Berlin urban soundscape.