He was born and raised in Toronto and attended Victoria College. After service in the Navy during World War II, in the early part of the 1950s he embarked on a trip through the southern United States, where he was appalled by the open racism and inequality. This experience gave him a lifelong concern with racial issues and discrimination that can be clearly seen in many of his films, including his most acclaimed, In the Heat of the Night.

Interestingly, despite his surname and his fame for directing the film version of Fiddler on the Roof and The Statement, he is not actually Jewish, but instead of British Protestant descent.

In 1981, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1991. In 1988, Jewison founded the Canadian Film Centre, an advanced film and television training institute located in Toronto, Ontario. He has been nominated for the best director Academy Award on a number of occasions, but has never won. In 1998, he was awarded The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, awarded periodically at the Academy Awards ceremonies to "Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production." For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Norman Jewison has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 7000 Hollywood Blvd. and has been inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.