In 1985, she was accepted to the prestigious Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and graduated in 1989. While a student at the Central Academy of Drama, she was discovered by Zhang Yimou, who chose her for the lead role in Red Sorghum, his first film as a Director.

Her personal and professional relationship with Director Zhang Yimou was highly publicized. The pair collaborated on six films between 1987 and 1995, before ending their relationship. They reunited in 2006 for the film Curse of the Golden Flower and in 2014 on Coming Home.

In 1993, she received a New York Film Critics Circle award for her role in Farewell My Concubine (1993). Directed by Chen Kaige, the film was her first major role with a Director other than Zhang Yimou. In the same year, she was awarded with the Berlinale Camera at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival. Premiere magazine ranked her performance in Farewell My Concubine as the 89th greatest performance of all time. She also worked with renowned Director Stephen Chow in comedy films God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai (1991) and Flirting Scholar (1993)

In June 1998, Gong Li became a recipient of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Two years later, she was invited by the Berlin Film Festival to be the President of its international jury at the festival's 50th anniversary (2001 February).

Gong was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 16 October 2000.

Despite her popularity, Gong avoided Hollywood for years, due to a lack of confidence in speaking English. She made her English speaking debut in 2005 when she starred as Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha. Her performance was met with generally positive reviews. Her other English-language roles to date included Miami Vice in 2006 and Hannibal Rising in 2007. In all three films, she learned her English lines phonetically.

She was voted the most beautiful woman in China in 2006.

Gong applied for Singapore citizenship in early 2008. When overseas professional obligations prevented her from showing up at her scheduled August citizenship ceremony, she was harshly criticized for not making it a priority. On Saturday, 8 November 2008, Gong, in an effort to make amends, attended a citizenship ceremony held at Teck Ghee Community Club and received her Singapore citizenship certificate from Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah.

In November 1996, Gong married Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe Seong at Hong Kong's China Club. On 28 June 2010, Gong's agent confirmed that Gong Li and her husband had divorced.

In 2014, Gong was a jury President of the 17th Shanghai International Film Festival. In the same year, she reunited with Zhang Yimou for the film Coming Home, which is set during the throes of the Cultural Revolution. The film was their first collaboration since 2006.

In 2016, Gong took on her first action role in The Monkey King 2, playing the White Bone Demon.

In 2018, Gong was cast in Lou Ye's period drama Saturday Fiction, where she plays an Actress who is working undercover gathering intelligence for the Allies. She was also cast in the live-action adaptation of the 1998 Disney animated film Mulan, playing a villain.