Often referred to as princess of parallel cinema, Tannishtha Chatterjee is celebrated for her remarkable international achievements in a career that began in 2003. Chatterjee began as an actress at the National School of Drama in Delhi, travelling across the country and abroad with well-known directors.

Chatterjee first appeared on the big screen with the film Swaraj (2003) which won the National award for Best Film. In 2004, she headed for a Indo-French production, Hava Aane Dey (Let The Wind Blow) by Partho Sengupta which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Her next big project was Shadows Of Time (2004), a German film by Florian Gallenberger, which took her to the international film festivals at Toronto and Berlin. She then appeared in Strings (2004) and Bibar (2006). Subrata Sen's Bibar earned her much critical acclaim and best actress awards at the Osian Film Festival (2006) and from the Bengal Film Journalists Association (2007). In 2007, she also got a big break when she was nominated for the British Independent Film Awards alongside Anne Hathaway and Jude Dench for her strong and dedicated performance in Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane.

In 2009, she won the award for best actress from the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council (MIAAC) for her performance in Bombay Summer. She also received the best actress award at the MIAAC New York Film Festival for the same film.

Chatterjee appeared in the lead role in Road, Movie (2010) opposite Abhay Deol. She was cast in Girish Malik's Jal (2012) and Nila Madhav Panda's Jalpari: The Desert Mastermind (2012). Both films won many National and International awards. Her international rendezvous continued with her appearance in Joe Wright's Anna Karenina (2012). She won both the National award for Best Actress and the Audience Choice award at the Busan International Film Festival for her performance in Mangesh Hadawale's Dekh Indian Circus (2013).

That same year, Chatterjee played a major role in Soumik Sen's Gulaab Gang starring Madhuri Dixit in the lead. Monsoon Shootout (2013), her next project, was in the official selection at the 66th Cannes Film Festival. Her next film Siddharth (2013) was at the official selection at the 70th Venice Film Festival and the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

Chatterjee's international profile was further strengthened by her appearance alongside Hollywood veteran Martin Sheen in Ravi Kumar's Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain (2015). Among her projects in the following years were Radhika Rao and Vinay Sapru's I Love New Year (2015) , Leena Yadav's Parched (2016) and Pan Nalin's Angry Indian Goddesses (2015). Chatterjee received a special award for her contribution to Asian cinema at the ceremony held at the BAFTAs in 2016. She won the best actress award for her captivating performance in Parched along with three other actresses in Festival2valenciennes and at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2016.

In 2016, Chatterjee also starred in the Australian romantic comedy UnIndian opposite former cricket star Brett Lee, Island City, for which Ruchika Oberoi was awarded the Best Debut Director award in Venice, and in Garth Device's Lion alongside Nicole Kidman and Dev Patel.

She was India's flag bearer at the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. She was also on the jury at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in 2010 and the prestigious MOOOV film festival in Belgium in 2016.

Tannishtha Chatterjee is a trained Hindustani classical singer and has lent her voice to films such as Page 3 (2005), Road, Movie (2010), and some of her own films. She has also sung at the Royal Opera House in London with famous British composer Jocelyn Pook.