Barbara Philipp was born on October 19, 1965, in Wittlich on the Mosel, where she grew up. During her school years, she performed in school theater productions, but then initially pursued costume design as a career. She completed an internship in this field in Trier before beginning her studies in film and theater studies and German literature at the Free University of Berlin. It was during these studies that Philipp realized she saw her future on the stage. Starting in 1988, she attended the Fritz-Kirchhoff School "Der Kreis" in Berlin and the H.B. Studio in New York, completing her acting training by 1993.

From 1994 to 1999, Barbara Philipp was involved in various theater productions at the Schaubühne am Halleschen Ufer, the Berliner Ensemble, and the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. During this period, she also made her television debut. Her first leading role was in the TV film "Nah am Wasser," which premiered at the Max Ophüls Film Festival in Saarbrücken in 1995. A year later, she played a regular role as one of five members of a young police team in the eleven-episode TV series "Die Kids von Berlin," which dealt with juvenile offenders empathetically rather than cynically.

By the late 1990s, she had appeared in further supporting roles in TV films as well as in the feature films "Als Großvater Rita Hayworth liebte" ("When Grandpa Loved Rita Hayworth") and Detlev Buck's comedy "Liebesluder" ("Bundle of Joy"). In 1999, she also had a recurring supporting role in the series "Himmel und Erde - ein göttliches Team" (directed by Ed Herzog, Arend Agthe, and Claudia Bosse). She had another lead role in 2004 as an investigator in the crime series "Einmal Bulle, immer Bulle," a six-part ZDF production. She also played leading roles in the TV films "Gnadenlose Bräute" (2000) as a thief who breaks out of prison with a fellow inmate and convicted murderer, and in Marc Rothemund's award-winning bullying drama "Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt" ("Final Hope", 2002) alongside Anneke Kim Sarnau, Axel Prahl, and Wotan Wilke Möhring.

Starting in 2000, she appeared in individual episodes of the crime series "Tatort" and was nominated for the German Television Award in 2004 for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of a drug addict in the Frankfurt "Tatort" episode "Das Böse."

Despite numerous and varied other roles, including appearances in popular crime series such as "Ein Fall für Zwei" and "Bella Block", Barbara Philipp has been widely acclaimed since 2010 for her recurring role as Magda Wächter in the series "Tatort", in which she has since supported Chief Inspector Felix Murot as his secretary and confidante, competently, fearlessly and with gruff charm, often taking unofficial investigative routes. The duo's critically acclaimed episodes include "Im Schmerz geboren" (2014), which won the Golden Camera for Best German Television Film, and "Murot und das Murmeltier", which won the Film Art Prize for Best Film at the Ludwigshafen German Film Festival.

While Philipp continued to work primarily for television in subsequent years, she increasingly appeared in film productions from 2016 onwards. She played smaller and larger supporting roles in Petra Lüschow's provincial comedy "Petting statt Pershing" ("Good Girl Gone Bad"), Nora Fingscheidt's hit film "Systemsprenger" ("System Crasher"), Steffen Weinert's organ donation drama "Das Leben meiner Tochter" (2019), and Piotr Lewandowski's "König der Raben" ("King of Ravens", 2020), which tells the story of the friendship between three social outcasts. For her portrayal of a mother seeking change in Janin Halisch's much-acclaimed mother-daughter drama "Sprich mit mir" ("Talk to Me"), she received a nomination for the German Film Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2024.