Bouchez was born in Tunis, Tunisia on April 5, 1973. She became a child model at the age of 13. Elodie made her film debut in Serge Gainsbourg's "Stan the Flasher" (1990) and went on to combine her acting pursuits with her school work; she also trained as a dancer, something she funded with baby-sitting money. Bouchez's acting career was floundering when, in 1994, she won the starring role of Maite in Andre Techine's Les_Roseaux_Sauvages. A critically praised coming-of-age film, it allowed Bouchez to demonstrate her considerable talents as an actress, to the extent that she won the Most Promising Actress Cesar for her work.

A gifted actress of dark-eyed, gamine beauty is one of the new young French cinema's most celebrated and prolific performers. This actress has made her name playing a series of intelligent, often wayward young women, characters she imbues with equal parts soul and complexity.

The acclaim surrounding her performance in Les Roseaux Sauvages brought Elodie numerous offers to work with a variety of directors, but early on she demonstrated a preference for working with young filmmakers. In 1994, the same year Bouchez starred in "Les Roseaux", she appeared in the ensemble drama "Le Peril Jeune", directed by rising young director Cedric Klapisch. Actress also collaborated with new director Gael_Morel, with whom Elodie had starred in "Les Roseaux", playing a university student in his drama "A Toute Vitesse" (1996).

In 1998, she earned great acclaim for her work with another up and coming director, Erik Zonca, in his directorial debut La via revee des anges. Starring alongside the equally remarkable Natacha Regnier, she played Isa, a wise, free-spirited young itinerant who enters into a tumultuous friendship with the unstable Marie (Regnier). Elodie and Regnier shared that year's Cannes Best Actress Award for their performances; the honor was followed by a European Film Award (also shared with Regnier) and the 1999 Best Actress Cesar for Bouchez.

The same year that Bouchez won the Best Actress Cesar, she continued to collaborate with some of her country's most promising young talents, co-starring with Morel in Zonzon, a comedy-drama set in prison, and playing a bisexual thief in his made-for-TV Premieres neiges. This actress also starred as a shop assistant in love with a Yugoslavian immigrant in Lovers, the directorial debut of actor Jean-Marc Barr.