Ula Stöckl was born in 1938 in Ulm, studied languages in London and Paris and worked as a bilingual secretary. From 1963 to 1968, she studied at the film institute of Ulm’s design college. "Neun Leben hat die Katze" ("The Cat Has Nine Lives") was her thesis film.

She worked with Edgar Reitz and directed TV movies and stage productions. Her film "Der Schlaf der Vernunft" was awarded a silver German film prize in 1985. Stöckl has been an associate lecturer, including at Berlin’s dffb film school and was on the selection committee for the Berlinale. Since 2002 she is on the selection committee of the Venice International Film Festival. Ula Stöckl is also an associate professor at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

In 1999, Ula Stöckl was awarded the Konrad-Wolf-Preis for her lifetime achievement.

Twenty years after her last release, she once returned to filmmaking: Fulfilling the will of her late friend and colleague Katrin Seybold, Stöckl continued and completed Seybold's documentary project "Die Widerständigen 'also machen wir das weiter ...'" ("The Resistors 'their spirit prevails'"). The finished film premiered at the 2015 Berlin IFF and was released in May 2015.