Redgrave was born, the daughter of actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson (Lady Redgrave). Laurence Olivier announced her birth to the audience for a performance of Hamlet at the Old Vic, when he told them that Laertes played by Sir Michael had a daughter.

She was educated at The Alice Ottley School in Worcester. Her siblings, Lynn Redgrave and the equally outspoken Corin Redgrave, are also acclaimed actors. Redgrave's daughters, Natasha Richardson and Joely Richardson (by her 1962–1967 marriage to film director Tony Richardson) have also built respected acting careers.

Redgrave's son Carlo Nero (né Carlo Sparanero), by her relationship with Italian actor Franco Nero (né Francesco Sparanero), is a writer and film director. She met Nero while filming Camelot in 1967, the year in which she divorced her husband Tony Richardson.

Vanessa Redgrave entered the London School of Speech and Drama in 1954. She first appeared in the West end, playing opposite her brother, in 1958.

In 1960, Redgrave had her first starring role in Robert Bolt's The Tiger and the Horse, in which she co-starred with her father. In 1962 she played Imogen in William Gaskill's production of Cymbeline for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In 1966 Redgrave created the role of Jean Brodie in the Donald Albery production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, adapted for the stage by Jay Presson Allen from the novel by Muriel Spark. She won four Evening Standard Awards Best ActressEvening Standards Awards for Best Actress in four decades. She was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award fr Best Actress in a Revival in 1984 for The Aspern Papers

In the nineties her theatre work included Prospero in The Tempest at Shakespeare's Globe in London. In 2003 she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in the Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.

In January 2006, Redgrave was presented the Ibsen Centennial Award for her "outstanding work in interpreting many of Henrik Ibsen's works over the last decades."[2] Previous recipients of the award include Liv Ullmann, Glenda Jackson, and Claire Bloom.

In 2007 Redgrave played Joan Didion in Didion's Broadway stage adaptation of her recent book, The Year of Magical Thinking, which played 144 regular performances in a 24-week limited engagement at the Booth Theatre. For this, she was nominated for a Tony Award in the category of Best Leading Actress in a Play. She reprised the role at the at the Lyttelton Theatre at The National Theatre in London to positive reviews. She also spent a week performing the work at the Theatre Royal in Bath for one week only in September 2008.

In March 2008 she was the guest on the 600th edition of Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme hosted by Michael Berkeley on BBC Radio 3.

Highlights of Vanessa Redgrave's early film career include her first starring role in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (for which she earned an Oscar nomination, a Cannes award, a Golden Globe nomination and a BAFTA Film Award nomination); her portrayal of the cool London swinger, Jane, in 1966’s Blowup; her spirited portrayal of dancer Isadora Duncan in Isadora (for which she won a National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, a second Prize for the Best Female Performance at the Cannes film festival, along with a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination in 1969); and various portrayals of historical figures - ranging from Andromache in The Trojan Women, to Mary of Scotland in Mary, Queen of Scots.