Caven has appeared in over 50 films. Her film debut was in 1969 in the short film Fernes Jamaica. This was swiftly followed by her first feature film Love Is Colder Than Death directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, to whom she was briefly married (1970-1972).
Her career was at its peak in the 1970s and early 1980s, mostly in film.
Her younger sister Trudeliese Schmidt (1943–2004) was an opera singer and also an actress.
In 1981 Caven starred alongside Carole Bouquet in the film Day of the Idiots as a doctor, and the next year she won an award for Outstanding Individual Achievement: Actress at the German Film Awards for her performance as Inga in the film Looping - Der lange Traum vom kurzen Glück. Currently Caven is living with French writer Jean-Jacques Schuhl, whose book Ingrid Caven won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2000.
In 1979 she was a member of the jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival.
