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Sophie Linnenbaum was born in Nuremberg in 1986. After graduating from high school, she studied psychology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. While still a student, she began working as a playwright in 2007 with the children's book author Thomas Klischke on children's and youth plays.
In 2013 Linnenbaum began studying directing at the Babelsberg Film University. Her student short films have screened at numerous national and international festivals, such as the 60-minute documentary "60 Jahre in 60 Minuten" (2014) and the multi-award-winning short feature film "[Out of Fra]me" (2016).
Her four-minute documentary "Meinungsaustausch", which she realized together with Sophia Bösch, was made as part of Michael Klier's university project "Research Refugees" and premiered at the Berlinale 2016. It won the FFA's Short Tiger Award and was invited in this context to the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where the international premiere of the Short Tiger winners traditionally takes place together with the films of German Films' 'Next Generation Programme'. In the same year, Linnenbaum won the German Short Film Award for "Pix" (2017), which shows the life of a boy in the form of a fast-paced series of photographs. Her other works include the fairytale-like, multi-award-winning short film "Das Mensch" (2019) and the 75-minute documentary "Väter Unser" (2020), in which six people tell stories about their fathers.
In March 2021, Linnenbaum began shooting her feature-length graduation film "The Ordinaries", a tragicomedy about a 16-year-old girl living in a world divided into a three-class society of "main characters", "minor characters" and "outtakes". The film premiered at the 2022 Munich Film Festival, where it won the New German Cinema Award for Best Production and Best Director. At Filmkunstmesse Leipzig 2022 it won the Audience Award and at Filmkunstfest Mecklenburg-Vorpommern it received the DEFA Foundation Award. At the Mainz Festival Filmz, the Exground Filmfest Wiesbaden and the First Steps Awards 2022, "The Ordinaries" was awarded Best Feature Film. In March 2023 the film had its regular theatrical release.