After studying literature and cinema at the University of Paris 3, Pascale Thirode began her career as an assistant director. She worked with Ramon Munoz, Jean-Louis Trotignon, Sébastien Japrisot, Gérard Mordillat, and others. After directing her first short fiction film in 1988, she turned her attention to documentaries. In 1996, she took part in a filmmaking course at the Ateliers Varan, which enabled her to make her film Éclats, which was selected for the États Généraux du Film Documentaire de Lussas. Pascale Thirode then directed several medium-length and feature-length documentaries, including Nos rendez-vous, made in 2001 with Angelo Caperna, about an exchange of video letters between pupils in a Year 10 class and inmates at the Santé prison in Paris. In the same year, she co-wrote the screenplay for the feature film En quête des soeurs Papin with Claude Ventura, which was selected for the Berlin Film Festival. In 2005, she began writing her film Acqua in bocca, released in 2011, a road movie in which she travels across Corsica to uncover a family secret. The film was selected for numerous festivals. In 2016, she directed a documentary on the philosopher Benny Levy entitled Benny Levy, traces d'un enseignement. She is currently working on writing a fiction film.

Filmography