Ricci was born in Santa Monica, California, the fourth child of Ralph Ricci and Sarah Murdoch. Her father, before becoming a lawyer, was a psychiatrist who specialized in shrieking therapy. While growing up, Christina could hear the therapies through the vents in her room, and would act them out in front her mother. The family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where she grew up attending Edgemont Elementary School, Mount Hebron Middle School and Montclair High School where she graduated from in 1998. Her siblings are Dante, Pia and Rafael. She is of mostly Scottish-Irish ancestry, although her great-grandfather was Italian; Ricci has said that "The Italian blood has been bred out of me. There's an Italian four or five generations back who married an Irish woman and they all had sons. So they married more Irish women, there were more sons, and more Irish women. Now I'm basically Scots-Irish".

Her parents divorced shortly after she filmed her role in 1993's Addams Family Values.

Ricci made her cinematic debut at the age of 9 alongside Cher, Bob Hoskins, and Winona Ryder in Mermaids. She auditioned for the roles that were eventually played by Kirsten Dunst in the films Little Women and Interview with the Vampire. She also appeared in the video for Moby's song "Natural Blues," and in ads for The Gap.

Ricci is perhaps best known for her roles in The Addams Family films, Sleepy Hollow, Monster and independent films including Buffalo 66, Prozac Nation, and The Opposite of Sex. Ricci had to turn down the role of Ronna in Go (1999) because of scheduling conflicts. She was turned down four times for the role of Lolita Haze in Lolita (1997), which eventually went to Dominique Swain. Ricci was originally slated to play the lead in Ghost World (2001), but by the time it was filmed she was too old for the part and had moved on to other projects. Thora Birch took over the role. Ricci has also begun producing films.

On August 17th, 2006 the Internet Movie Database reported that Ricci feels she is "too short" to ever be an A-List actress. In her own words: "I don't think that's ever going to happen for me. I'm five-one first thing in the morning, and I tend to look really small on camera. I can probably go as far as Holly Hunter went, then I think that's going to be it. I have a feeling I am way too small."

Ricci has several tattoos, including a bouquet of sweet peas on her lower back, a bat on her bikini line, a lion on her shoulder blade and others. Ricci also owns her own production company, responsible for films she has starred in, Prozac Nation and Pumpkin.

Ricci is on the national board of VOX-Voices for Planned Parenthood, which works to promote the mission of Planned Parenthood to young adults. She will also be appearing in national ads for Emergency Contraception. She supported John Kerry's presidential bid in 2004.

On December 4, 1999, she appeared on Saturday Night Live as the guest host, in which she parodied Britney Spears and the Olsen twins. During one of her skits, she accidentally punched actress Ana Gasteyer in the face. The skit was a parody of the "Sally Jessy Raphael" show, in which she played a 13-year-old runaway who sleeps with dogs, and required her to fake-punch Sally, but accidentally hit her for real. While she initially reacted by putting her hands over her mouth in surprise, she maintained her professionalism and quickly fell back into character.

She is a Christian.

In February of 2006, Christina made a guest appearance as a paramedic in the ABC drama Grey's Anatomy.