[1] Her family was deeply involved in France's film industry, as her father was an actor and her mother was a director, producer, and screenwriter.

In 2003, Trintignant began an affair with Bertrand Cantat, the lead singer of French rock band Noir Désir.

Cantat was convicted of "murder with indirect intent" in her death and received an eight-year prison sentence, of which he served four before his early release.

[1] Trintignant's first film to generate significant critical acclaim was Série noire, in which she starred alongside Patrick Dewaere.

[3] In 1988, Trintignant worked under French director Claude Chabrol in the film Une Affaire de Femmes, in which she played a young prostitute in wartime Vichy France.

Of the role and Chabrol's impact on her career, Trintignant later reflected, "Until then, I had always felt that I was a fraud if I did not go to extremes in showing my characters' pain, but he taught me lightness.

She starred opposite her then-husband François Cluzet in the 1995 film The Apprentices, and in 1998, she appeared again with Depardieu in White Lies.

[13] Cantat's parole drew widespread criticism from women's rights activists and Trintignant's parents, who had failed to persuade French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French judges to block Cantat's conditional release.

[5][14][15] Several writers criticized the media for sensationalizing Trintignant's death and her relationship with Cantat, as, despite the elements of domestic violence in their relationship, rock journalists frequently compared them to Romeo and Juliet, as well as Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.

[19] Trintignant was nominated for France's most prestigious acting honor, the César Award, five times, for her roles in: Not long before her death, she sang a duet in the song "Pièce montée des grands jours" by French folksinger Thomas Fersen in 2003.