In 1960 Sandrelli won the Miss Cinema Viareggio beauty contest, then she was the cover girl of the magazine Le Ore and had the first opportunities to make films, appearing, among others, in Luciano Salce's Il federale. Her film career was launched by Pietro Germi with Divorce, Italian Style (1961); later she worked three more times with Germi, in Seduced and Abandoned (1963), L'immorale (1967) and Alfredo, Alfredo (1970).