After graduating in audiovisual studies from the University of Beirut, she directed adverts and music videos that frequently won awards. In 2004, she embarked on a Festival de Cannes Cinéfondation Residency to write and develop Caramel, her first feature film, shot two years later and showcased at the Directors' Fortnight in 2007. This joyous, rebellious ode to female camaraderie was distributed worldwide and became the most successful Lebanese film export of all time. Nadine Labaki continued to explore the female condition and religious tensions in Where Do We Go Now?, a bold, universal fable on tolerance that premiered at Un Certain Regard in 2011 and won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival .

In 2008, she received the Insignia of Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture.  

In 2014 Nadine directed Rio, I Love You, one of the segments of the Cities of Love anthology film which she directed, co-wrote and starred in, opposite Harvey Keitel.

In 2018, Nadine Labaki was selected in the official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival with her powerfully moving Capernaum, a poignant manifesto on damaged childhood, refugees and the cracks in a society that turns its back on humanity, which sent shockwaves around the Croisette.
Nadine Labaki won the Jury Prize of the Cannes Film Festival that year, chaired by Cate Blanchett, and gave an unforgettable speech accompanied by young actor and Syrian refugee, Zain Al Rafeea. Nominated for the Baftas, the Golden Globes, the French Césars and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Capernaum made its Lebanese director the first woman from the Arabic-speaking world to be nominated in this category.

In 2019, she was the president of the « Un Certain Regard » jury at Cannes Film Festival.
Her latest short film, entitled: Mayroun and the unicorn created for “Homemade” series, was co-directed with her husband, composer Khaled Mouzanar. It tells the story of her daughter Mayroun’s imagination during confinement.

As an actress, Nadine Labaki played in Fred Cavayé’s movie Mea Culpa, in Xavier Beauvois’ film La Rançon de la Gloire, in Stray bullet of the Lebanese Director Georges Hachem, in Rock the Casbah of Laïla Marrakchi, in 1982 of Oualid Mouaness, in Costa Brava of Mounia Akl, in Perfect Strangers of Wissam Smayra and Retour en Alexandrie of Tamer Ruggli.