Anocha Suwichakornpong was born in Thailand 1976. She spent the 1990's living in England, where she attended universities and graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees. In 2006, she graduated from the MFA film program at Columbia University, where she was a recipient of Hollywood Foreign Press Association Fellowship.

She attended the Talent Campus of the Berlin Film Festival in 2006, where her feature-length script, The White Room, was among the 15 projects chosen to participate in the Script Clinic.

Her thesis film Graceland was selected for the 59th Cannes Film Festival's Cinefondation program. It was the first Thai short film selected for the Cannes Film Festival. It was also featured at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and many other festivals.