Julia Ducournau was born in Paris to a gynaecologist mother and dermatologist father. She attended La Fémis and studied screenwriting. Her first film, Junior, is a short film about a girl who “after contracting a stomach bug” began to “shed her skin” like a snake. In 2011, Junior won the Petit Rail d'Or at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. In 2012, Ducournau released a TV-film titled Mange. The film follows a recovering bulimic who is seeking “revenge on her college tormentor.” Her first feature film is 2016's Raw. The project had been developed through the TorinoFilmLab Framework programme in 2013. Raw was screened in the International Critics' Week section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. In October 2016, Raw won the Sutherland Award for Best First Feature at the London Film Festival. Per David Fear of Rolling Stone, Raw is a contender for the "best horror movie of the decade."
In 2021, Ducournau's sophomore feature Titane was bought by Neon. For Titane, Ducournau was awarded the coveted Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival where it had its world premiere. The award was accidentally presented to Ducournau at the beginning of the awards ceremony by jury president Spike Lee, although it was intended to be the final award of the evening. Ducournau is the second female filmmaker to win after Jane Campion in 1993 for The Piano, the first to win not jointly with another director (Campion had won jointly alongside Chen Kaige, for Farewell My Concubine), and the fourth female overall to win after Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux won in 2013 for their performances in Blue is the Warmest Colour. Additionally, Ducournau also received a nomination for Best Director at the 75th British Academy Film Awards.
Xavier Aldana Reyes categorizes Ducournau's films as "Gothic Horror Heroinism." This is illustrated by "graphic body horror" shown in all of her films. According to Ducournau, her "flesh fascination stems from her childhood" since both her parents are doctors. Per Ducournau, the way in which her parents spoke about the human body growing up informed her artistic expression within her films. For instance, she outlines in an interview with The Guardian that "doctors have this very upfront yet distant way of talking about bodies and death." Alex Godfrey, Guardian journalist, illustrates this "flesh fascination" can be seen through her "unflinching" use of the camera in Raw, with "unforgiving" closeups and "atrocities un-glorified."

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