Linda Manz made her feature film debut at age 15 in Terrence Malick's period drama Days of Heaven (1978), playing an adolescent girl growing up in rural Texas in 1916. She followed this with a supporting role in The Wanderers (1979). Manz earned critical acclaim for her portrayal of a troubled teenage girl from a dysfunctional family in Dennis Hopper's drama film Out of the Blue (1980).

Manz stepped away from her acting profession in the mid-1980s and relocated to Southern California, where she lived outside the public eye and focused on raising her three children. She returned to acting in 1997 with small roles in Harmony Korine's film Gummo and David Fincher's thriller The Game. She developed a strong cult following than began in the 1990s.

琳达·曼兹 （Linda Manz） 15 岁时在泰伦斯·马利克 （Terrence Malick） 的时代剧《天堂的日子》（Days of Heaven，1978 年）中首次亮相，饰演 1916 年在德克萨斯州农村长大的青春期女孩。随后，她在《流浪者》（1979）中担任配角。曼兹因在丹尼斯·霍珀 （Dennis Hopper） 的剧情片《出乎意料》（Out of the Blue，1980 年）中饰演一个来自功能失调家庭的陷入困境的少女而广受好评。