Kim Jung-eun debuted as an actress in 1995 with the film My Old Sweetheart. In 1999, she was named Best New Actress at the MBC Drama Awards for Days of Delight. In 2002, she starred in the hit movie Marrying the Mafia, which won her the Popular Star Award at the 23rd Blue Dragon Film Awards. In 2004, she once again received the Blue Dragon Popular Star Award for the movie How to Keep My Love. That same year, she was paired with Park Shin-yang in the widely popular SBS series Lovers in Paris, which earned the Daesang for Television at the 41st Baeksang Arts Awards. Her performance in the series also gave her numerous acting honors including the Daesang at the SBS Drama Awards and the Baeksang Best Actress trophy. In 2008, she took home the Baeksang Most Popular Actress award for the drama film Forever the Moment. In 2010, she led the cast of SBS’s I Am Legend, which scored her a Top Excellence Award at the SBS Drama Awards. In 2015, she bagged another Top Excellence Award at the MBC Drama Awards for the weekend series Make a Woman Cry.

Kim Jung-eun studied theater and film at Konkuk University. She once dated her Lovers leading man Lee Seo-jin. In April 2016, she married her non-celebrity boyfriend in a private ceremony in Seoul.