Carol Morley was born in Manchester, England. She attended Central St Martins College of Art, where she graduated with a first class degree in fine art film and video. Her films include The Alcohol Years, a BAFTA nominated film about her scurrilous teenage past, Dreams of a Life, which went behind the anonymous newspaper headline about Joyce Vincent who lay dead in her flat for three years, and The Falling, a BBC Films/BFI backed film, set in a girls' school in England in 1969, which revolved around an outbreak of mass psychogenic illness, featuring Maisie Williams, Florence Pugh and Maxine Peake.