Rampling was born in 1946 in Sturmer, Essex, the daughter of Isabel Anne (née Gurteen; 1918–2001), a painter, and Godfrey Rampling (1909–2009), an Olympic gold medallist and British Army officer. She spent most of her childhood in Gibraltar, France and Spain, before she returned to the UK in 1964.

She began her career as a model and first appeared in a Cadbury advertisement. She was working as a secretary when she was noticed by a casting agent in the same building. Her first screen appearance, which was uncredited, was as a water skier in Richard Lester’s film The Knack …and How to Get It. She also appeared as an extra in Lester’s next directorial outing, the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night (1964). In 1965, she was cast in the role of Meredith in the film Georgy Girl and was given a role by John Boulting in the comedy Rotten to the Core. In 1967, she starred opposite Yul Brynner in the adventure film The Long Duel. She also appeared alongside Franco Nero in the Italian film Sardinia Kidnapped (Sequestro di persona) (1968), directed by Gianfranco Mingozzi.

She attended Académie Jeanne d’Arc in Versailles and St Hilda’s School, a boarding school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England. She had one sister, Sarah, who died by suicide in 1966, aged 23. She and Sarah had had a close relationship, and they had performed in a cabaret act together during their teenage years.

Rampling credits François Ozon with drawing her back to film in the 2000s, a period when she came to terms with the death of her elder sister Sarah who, after giving birth prematurely in 1966, died by suicide at 23. “I thought that after such a long time of not letting her be with me,” she told The Guardian, “I would like to bring her back into my life.” The character she played in Ozon’s Swimming Pool (2003), Sarah Morton, was named in her sister’s honour.

On television, Rampling played the gunfighter Hana Wilde in “The Superlative Seven,” a 1967 episode of The Avengers. In 1969, she starred opposite Sam Waterston in the romance-drama Three, and in 1972, she starred opposite Robert Blake in the drama Corky and portrayed Anne Boleyn in the costume drama Henry VIII and His Six Wives. After this, her acting career blossomed in both English and French cinema.

Rampling has performed controversial roles. In 1969, in Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (La Caduta degli dei), she played a young wife sent to a Nazi concentration camp. Critics praised her performance, and it cast her in a whole new image: mysterious, sensitive, and ultimately tragic. “The Look,” as her co-star Dirk Bogarde called it, became her trademark.

In 1972, Rampling married New Zealand actor and publicist Bryan Southcombe and had a son, Barnaby (who became a television director), before divorcing in 1976. The couple was reported to have been living in a ménage à trois with a male model, Randall Laurence, and in 1974, Rampling was quoted by the syndicated columnist Earl Wilson as saying: “There are so many misunderstandings in life. I once caused a scandal by saying I lived with two men […] I didn’t mean it in a sexual sense […] We were just like any people sharing an apartment.”

In 1974’s The Night Porter, in which she again appears alongside Dirk Bogarde, she plays a former concentration camp inmate who, after World War II, reunites with a former camp guard (Bogarde) with whom she had had an ambiguous, sadomasochistic relationship. Their relationship resumes, and she becomes his mistress and victim once again. In Max mon amour, she played a woman who falls in love with a chimpanzee. In 1974, she posed nude for Playboy. In 1976 she co-presented for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Award with Anthony Hopkins at the 48th Academy Awards.

In 1974, Rampling starred in John Boorman’s science-fiction film Zardoz opposite Sean Connery. She also starred with Peter O’Toole in Foxtrot (1976) and with Richard Harris in Orca (1977). She gained recognition from American audiences in a remake of Raymond Chandler’s detective story Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and later with Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories (1980), and in The Verdict (1982), an acclaimed drama directed by Sidney Lumet that starred Paul Newman.

In 1978, Rampling married French composer Jean-Michel Jarre and had a second son, David Jarre, who became a musician and singer. She raised her stepdaughter, Émilie Jarre, who became a fashion designer. The marriage was publicly dissolved in 1997, when Rampling learned from tabloid newspaper stories about Jarre’s affairs with other women.

Rampling starred in Claude Lelouch’s 1984 film Viva la vie (Long Live Life), before going on to star in the cult-film Max, Mon Amour (1986), and appear in the thriller Angel Heart (1987). For a decade she withdrew from the public eye due to depression. In the late 1990s, she appeared in The Wings of the Dove (1997), played Miss Havisham in a BBC television adaptation of Great Expectations (1998), and starred in the film adaptation of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard (1999), directed by Michael Cacoyannis.. In 1997, she was a member of jury at the 54th Venice International Film Festival.

For most of Rampling’s life, she would say only that her sister had died of a brain haemorrhage; when she and her father learned of Sarah’s death, they agreed they would never let her mother know the truth. They kept their secret until Rampling’s mother died in 2001.

The actress has continued to work in sexually provocative films, such as Basic Instinct 2 (2006). In 2008, she portrayed Countess Spencer, the mother of Keira Knightley’s title character, in The Duchess and played the High Priestess in post-apocalyptic thriller Babylon A.D.. In 2002, she recorded an album titled Comme Une Femme, or As A Woman. It is in both French and English, and includes passages that are spoken word as well as selections which Rampling sang.. In February 2006, Rampling was named as the jury president at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival.

She has been seen on the covers of Vogue, Interview and Elle magazines and CRUSHfanzine. In 2009, she posed nude in front of the Mona Lisa for Juergen Teller. In 2009, Rampling appeared in Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime.

In 2010, she completed filming Cleanskin, a terrorist thriller, and played Miss Emily in the dystopian romantic fantasy Never Let Me Go. She also appeared as Helena in the dance drama StreetDance 3D and the nun Mary in The Mill and the Cross with Michael York and Rutger Hauer. In 2011, she appeared in Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia. For her role in the 2012 miniseries Restless, Rampling was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2013, she appeared as Dr. Evelyn Vogel in the final season of Dexter. Rampling also appeared as Alice in the drama Jeune et Jolie and the elderly Adriana do Prado in Night Train to Lisbon. Other television roles include the ITV drama Broadchurch (2015) and the BBC drama London Spy (2015). In 2014, she was named the new face of NARS Cosmetics to launch their new lipstick campaign.

In 2015, Rampling starred opposite Tom Courtenay in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years. The film is about a couple preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary when new information regarding the husband’s missing previous lover arises. 45 Years was screened in the main competition section of the 65th Berlin International Film Festival. She won the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Tom Courtenay won the Silver Bear for Best Actor. For this role, she also won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress, the European Film Award for Best Actress, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and also received nominations for the BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a British Independent Film and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Actress.

She was engaged to Jean-Noël Tassez, a French journalist and businessman, from 1998 until his death in 2015. Rampling lives in Paris. She has also suffered from depression.

In 2016, Rampling accused those boycotting that year’s Academy Awards ceremony of hostility towards Caucasians. Her comments were called “offensive, outrageous and ignorant” by Chelsea Clinton, while they were defended by Clint Eastwood. Rampling later apologised for her comments and expressed regret that her statements were misinterpreted.

In 2017, Rampling co-starred as Veronica Ford with Jim Broadbent and Emily Mortimer in The Sense of an Ending, which was based on the novel by Julian Barnes. It had its world premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2017. Her next film was in Andrea Pallaoro’s Hannah, where she portrayed the title role of the wife of a man imprisoned on uncertain charges. For her role, she was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actress award at the 74th Venice International Film Festival.

In January 2019, Rampling was cast as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam in the upcoming Denis Villeneuve adaptation of Dune alongside Timothée Chalamet in the leading role.