[1] Growing up, she accompanied her mother, Kim Hwa-young [ko], a stage actress, to theater and rehearsal halls, learning lines of dialogue as she went along.

[8] In 2000, director Bong Joon-ho cast Bae in the film Barking Dogs Never Bite for her willingness to do the part without makeup, which other South Korean actresses refused to do.

"[11] In Kim So-young's documentary Women's History Trilogy (2000–2004), Doona expressed her admiration for veteran South Korean actress Yoon Jeong-hee.

[12] That same year, she gave a risque performance (albeit with a body double for the more intense scenes) in Plum Blossom,[13] and started getting more work on television.

[20][21] She appeared on stage in 2004 in a production of Sunday Seoul (not to be confused with the South Korean movie of the same title), a play co-written by Park Chan-wook.

[36][37][38] Her 2012 sports film As One was based on the true story of the 1991 world table tennis championship held in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, where North and South Korean players – Ri Bun-hui and Hyun Jung-hwa respectively – defeated the Chinese team.

[46][47][48] She also played the minor roles of Tilda Ewing, the wife of an abolitionist in pre-Civil War America, and a Mexican woman who crosses paths with an assassin.

Co-directed by The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, the US$100 million adaptation of David Mitchell's novel premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival to divisive reviews, though Bae's performance was praised by critics.

"[51] Back in South Korea, Bae next starred in the 2014 film A Girl at My Door, directed by July Jung and produced by Lee Chang-dong.

[52] Playing a small-town police officer who tries to save a mysterious young girl she suspects is a victim of domestic violence, Bae said she was so fascinated by the story and emotionally challenging role that she decided to star in the movie without pay three hours after reading the script.

Concerning eight strangers from different cultures and parts of the world who share a violent psychic vision and suddenly find themselves telepathically connected, Sense8 began streaming on Netflix in 2015.

[68][69] Bae returned to Korean TV screens in 2017 with crime thriller Stranger, playing the passionate yet empathetic police officer Lieutenant Han Yeo-jin, contrasting Cho Seung-woo's character Prosecutor Hwang Si-mok.

In June 2018, Bae was one of 14 professionals from the Korean film industry invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).