Lena Stolze was born on August 8, 1956, in East Berlin to actress Gabriele, née Gretschel, and the tenor Gerhard Stolze. The family left East Germany in 1961 and moved to Vienna, where Lena grew up as an Austrian citizen and completed her Matura (high school diploma). She later moved to Munich for her studies, initially enrolling in German studies and art history but eventually dropped out to begin her acting training at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna in 1975.

Her acting career took off when she was cast by Rudolf Noelte in the role of Walburga in his production of Hauptmann's "The Rats" at the Freie Volksbühne. She then appeared alongside Will Quadflieg as Recha in Lessing's "Nathan the Wise" (directed by Kurt Hübner) and under Hans Lietzau as Leontine in Hauptmann's "The Beaver Coat" at the Schillertheater.

In 1977, Stolze appeared before the camera for the first time, in Noelte's TV adaptation of "The Rats." The following year, she appeared in Michael Haneke's early work "Lemminge" (TV). Despite her TV roles, Lena Stolze remained primarily connected to the theater. In 1979, she made her debut at the Vienna Burgtheater in the musical "The Wizard of Oz." She then performed at various theaters, including the Munich Residenztheater, the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, the Schauspielhaus Frankfurt, the Renaissance Theater Berlin, and the Deutsche Schauspielhaus Hamburg.

Lena Stolze made her big screen breakthrough in 1982 as Sophie Scholl in Michael Verhoeven's "Die weiße Rose" ("The White Rose"). In an unusual situation, she played the same character in two films by different directors: After playing Sophie Scholl in "Die weiße Rose", she reprised the role in Percy Adlon's "Fünf letzte Tage" ("Five Last Days"). Both films were released almost simultaneously in Germany in 1982.  Her convincing and intense portrayal of the resistance fighter in both dramas earned her the German Film Prize at the German Film Awards.

In 1983, she worked with Adlon again in his film "Die Schaukel" ("The Swing"), based on the autobiographical novel by poet Annette Kolb, and received the Bavarian Film Award for her performance. The following year, she starred in Norbert Kückelmann's legal drama "Morgen in Alabama" ("Man Under Suspicion").

In the following years, Lena Stolze appeared in two episodes of the TV series "Derrick" and took part in the German-Finnish co-production "Maschenka" (1985-87). On stage she played Ophelia in Heiner Müller's "Hamletmaschine" at Hamburg's Thalia Theater from 1984 to 1992, directed by Robert Wilson, and worked with directors such as Jürgen Flimm, Jürgen Gosch, Achim Benning, Wolfgang Wiens and Norbert Skrovanek, with whom she was briefly married and founded the production company Blaufilm.

In 1989, she worked with Michael Verhoeven again in "Das schreckliche Mädchen" ("The Nasty Girl"). Her performance as the determined protagonist, Sonja, who refuses to let go of the Nazi past in her small town, earned her another German Film Award. She also received the German Film and Television Critics Award and a Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival. Verhoeven's sharp comedy won a Silver Bear for directing at the 1991 Berlin Film Festival and was nominated as Germany's entry for the Academy Awards.

In the 1990s, Lena Stolze appeared more frequently in TV films, such as "Winterkind" (1997, directed by Margarethe von Trotta). Her prominent roles in the crime comedy "Diebinnen" (1995) and the historical biopic "Mein Herz – Niemandem!" (1997) by Helma Sanders-Brahms and a supporting role in Joseph Vilsmaier's "Schlafes Bruder" (1995), were some of the few exceptions where she also appeared on the big screen. After her last appearance as Nina in Chekhov's "The Seagull" at the Hamburg Thalia in 1992, her theater appearances became rare in the last decade before the millennium.

In the new millennium, the actress returned to her productive early years. She had a supporting role as a lawyer in Dani Levy's "Väter" ("I'm the Father", 2002) and played a central role as the mother of the main character Anke in Felix Randau's drama "Northern Star" (2003), nominated for the First Steps Award. During the same period, she collaborated with Margarethe von Trotta again in "Rosenstraße" and portrayed a mother in Dito Tsintsadze's award-winning "Schussangst" ("Gun-Shy"). She appeared in several television productions, including several episodes of the crime series "Tatort," and eventually took on a regular role as Police Councilor Dr. Krüger in the TV crime series "Der Elefant – Mord verjährt nie" (2002-2005).

In 2007, Lena Stolze appeared in Robert Thalheim's highly acclaimed "Am Ende kommen Touristen" ("And Along Come Tourists"), which was screened in the "Un certain regard" section at Cannes. The following year, she played mother roles again in "Ein Teil von mir" ("A Piece of Me") and the youth drama "2er ohne" ("Coxless Pair"). In 2009, she again worked with von Trotta in "Vision – Aus dem Leben der Hildegard von Bingen" (“Vision: From the Life of Hildegard Von Bingen"), where she portrayed the novice Jutta. She also played the mother of the mountaineering brothers Messner in Joseph Vilsmaier's tragic film biography "Nanga Parbat" (2010) and worked with Percy Adlon again in the drama "Mahler auf der Couch" ("Mahler on the Couch", 2010). In Pia Strietmann's "Tage die bleiben" ("A Family of Three", 2011), a balancing act between drama and comedy, she played a mother whose death threatens to tear a family apart but ultimately brings them together in a new way.

With a few exceptions, such as Frederik Steiner's "Und morgen Mittag bin ich tot" ("Zurich", 2013) or Norbert Lechner's "Ente gut! Mädchen allein zuhaus" ("Fortune Favors the Brave", 2016), Lena Stolze appeared more often on television screens than on the big screen in the following years. From 2013 to 2021, she had a regular role as psychologist Dr. Barbara Jacobi in the ZDF Saturday crime series "Kommissarin Heller". She also made guest appearances in episodes of series such as "Lena Lorenz", "Helen Dorn", "In aller Freundschaft" and "Der Zürich-Krimi". Her various roles in TV movies include Christoph Röhl's "Die Auserwählten" (2014), Thomas Berger's "Angst – Der Feind in meinem Haus" (2017), and Anno Saul's "Die Welt steht still" (2021). She played a crucial role as the wife of a serial killer in the Kiel "Tatort: Borowski und der Schatten des Mondes" (2022), directed by Nicolai Rohde.

Lena Stolze is married to the dramaturge Michael Eberth, with whom she has three children. They live in Berlin.