Thomas Ladenburger was born in 1975 in Ellwangen/Jagst. He studied photography and interdisciplinary media at the San Francisco Art Institute; back in Germany he studied visual communication at the Kassel Art Academy and from 1999 experimental media design at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). Already during this time he was working in the camera and sound departments of a number of film productions. From 2003 he worked as a lecturer at the UdK during his master class studies. In 2004 he made his directorial debut with the feature-length documentary "Für mich und die anderen - Paola Beate von Pückler und Ägypten". In 2005 he graduated as a master student.   

In the following years Ladenburger worked as a camera assistant on the documentaries "Brinkmanns Zorn" (2006, director: Harald Bergmann), "Hahnemanns Medizin" (2006, director: Elfi Mikesch) and "Fassbinders Berlin Alexanderplatz. Ein Megafilm und seine Geschichte" (2007, Director: Juliane Maria Lorenz). In the same function, he was involved in Rosa von Praunheim's documentaries "Meine Mütter - Spurensuche in Riga" ("Two Mothers - The Search Began in Riga", 2007, also sound) and "Tote Schwule - Lebende Lesben" ("Dead Gay Men And Living Lesbians", 2008), before he was one of six main cameramen for von Praunheim's "Rosas Höllenfahrt" ("History of Hell", 2009).   

Thomas Ladenburger's second own documentary film was "Al Halqa - Im Kreis der Geschichtenerzähler" ("Al Halqa - In the Storyteller′s Circle", 2010), about a storyteller on the market square Djemaa El Fna in Marrakech. He also wrote the script for the film and was its cameraman and producer. Some of the footage he shot was of various jugglers on the Djemaa El Fna market square. In 2013 he produced a series of short documentaries from this material.   

After this, he mainly worked in the camera and sound department of films of other directors, including Harald Bergmann's "Der Schmetterlingsjäger - 37 Karteikarten zu Nabokov" (2010-2014) and Rosa von Praunheim’s "Die Jungs vom Bahnhof Zoo" ("Rent Boys", 2011), "ACT! - Wer bin ich? (2011), "Männerfreundschaften" ("Friendship of Men", 2011) and "Überleben in Neukölln" ("Survival in Berlin-Neukölln", 2017).   

In 2018 Ladenburger began working on the documentary film "Ich bin Anastasia" (I am Anastasia) about the sex reassignment of a transgender woman who works as a commander in the Bundeswehr. The film was theatrically released in November 2019.