The Legend of Tarzan tries to reinvent the classic story by starting after Tarzan has already left the jungle, but it gets bogged down in Victorian politics and colonial guilt instead of embracing the adventure audiences wanted. Margot Robbie plays Jane Porter, who gets captured early and spends most of the movie waiting to be rescued despite the film's attempts to make her more independent. The whole thing feels like it's apologizing for being a Tarzan movie rather than just being a good one. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Terminal drops Margot Robbie into a neon-soaked noir where she plays Annie, a diner waitress who might be orchestrating everyone's doom. The movie tries to build mystery around whether she's innocent or the mastermind behind a series of interconnected murders in a grimy train station. Robbie leans hard into femme fatale territory, but the film gets so caught up in its own style that the plot becomes nearly incomprehensible. It's the kind of movie that thinks being confusing is the same thing as being clever. | © RLJE Films
Mary Queen of Scots puts Margot Robbie in the role of Elizabeth I, creating a face-off between two of history's most complicated queens. The film imagines a meeting between Elizabeth and Mary Stuart that never actually happened, but the dramatic weight comes from watching Robbie play a monarch who knows exactly how much her crown costs. Robbie transforms into the older, more calculating Elizabeth, complete with smallpox scars and the kind of political ruthlessness that made her legendary. The movie works best when it focuses on the impossible choices both women had to make in a world designed to destroy them. | © Focus Features
Dreamland pairs Margot Robbie with Finn Cole in a Depression-era crime story that feels like it wandered out of a different decade of filmmaking. Robbie plays Allison Wells, a bank robber on the run who hides out with a teenage farmhand obsessed with capturing her for the bounty. The movie leans hard into dusty Americana and sultry noir atmosphere, but most viewers found it more stylish than substantial. It's the kind of period piece that looks great in stills but struggles to justify why this particular story needed to be told. | © Vertical Entertainment
Focus pairs Margot Robbie with Will Smith in a con artist thriller that works better as a showcase for her natural screen presence than as an actual heist movie. Robbie plays Jess, a rookie grifter who gets tangled up with Smith's veteran con man in ways that blur the line between professional mentorship and romantic manipulation. The plot twists pile up without much logic, but Robbie sells every moment with the kind of effortless charisma that made it clear she could hold her own opposite established stars. The movie mostly exists as proof that she was ready for leading roles even when the material wasn't quite ready for her. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Suite Française puts Margot Robbie in occupied France as Lucille, a young woman caught between loyalty and desire when a German officer stays in her home. The film takes Irène Némirovsky's unfinished novel and turns it into a wartime romance that feels more polite than passionate. Robbie brings warmth to a role that could have been thankless, but the movie around her never quite decides whether it wants to be a serious meditation on collaboration or a safer story about forbidden love. The period details look expensive, but the emotional stakes feel oddly muted for a story set during such a brutal time. | © The Weinstein Company
About Time casts Margot Robbie as Charlotte, the glamorous party girl who becomes the object of Tim's misguided romantic obsessions. Her role is smaller than the leads, but she nails the specific type of person who looks perfect from across a room and utterly wrong up close. Robbie makes Charlotte feel real rather than just a plot device, even as the movie uses her to teach Tim that chasing fantasy crushes is a waste of actual time. The film works because it treats time travel as a way to fix small moments instead of saving the world. | © Universal Pictures
Amsterdam throws Margot Robbie into a 1930s conspiracy thriller where she plays Valerie Voze, a wealthy socialite caught up in a murder mystery alongside Christian Bale and John David Washington. David O. Russell stuffs the film with an ensemble cast so large it becomes distracting, turning what should be a focused mystery into a parade of famous faces doing quirky accents. The period details look expensive, but the tone wobbles between screwball comedy and serious historical drama without ever finding its footing. Robbie tries to anchor the chaos with her usual charm, but even she can't make sense of a script that seems more interested in being eccentric than coherent. | © 20th Century Studios
The Big Short turns Margot Robbie into the most memorable economics teacher you never had in school. She breaks the fourth wall from a bubble bath to explain subprime mortgages, making complex financial fraud feel both accessible and infuriating. Her cameo works because she treats the audience like adults who deserve to understand how badly they got screwed. The film proves that sometimes the best way to explain a disaster is to have someone gorgeous tell you the truth while drinking champagne. | © Paramount Pictures
I, Tonya turns the Tonya Harding scandal into a dark comedy that lets Margot Robbie disappear completely into the disgraced figure skater. She nails the accent, the attitude, and the complicated mix of ambition and self-destruction that made Harding both sympathetic and infuriating. The movie treats the whole mess like a tragicomic opera, with Robbie selling every moment of Harding's rise and spectacular fall. She makes you root for someone you probably remember hating. | © Neon
Birds of Prey lets Margot Robbie turn Harley Quinn into the star of her own chaotic revenge fantasy after breaking up with the Joker. The movie throws roller derby fights, glittery violence, and a breakfast sandwich obsession into a Gotham City that feels more like a neon-soaked playground than a crime thriller. Robbie gets to lean into every unhinged impulse the character offers while leading a team of women who all have their own scores to settle. It's the kind of comic book movie that prioritizes fun over universe-building. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Bombshell puts Margot Robbie in the middle of the Fox News sexual harassment scandal as Kayla Pospisil, a composite character representing the young women caught in Roger Ailes' toxic system. Robbie captures the specific horror of realizing your dream job requires surviving predatory behavior from the men in charge. The film works because it never lets anyone off easy, showing how institutional power protects abusers while victims get blamed for speaking up. Robbie's performance hits hardest in the scenes where Kayla's ambition collides with her growing awareness of what success actually costs. | © Lionsgate
Barbie turned Margot Robbie into the world's most famous plastic doll, but the real trick was making that movie a social commentary instead of a two-hour toy commercial. Robbie plays the perfect Barbie who starts experiencing an existential crisis, complete with flat feet and thoughts of death, which sends her to the real world. The movie somehow manages to be both a corporate product and a sharp satire of corporate products, with Robbie anchoring the whole balancing act between sincere emotion and deliberate artifice. What could have been disaster capitalism ends up feeling like the strangest feminist blockbuster ever made. | © Warner Bros. Pictures
Margot Robbie has spent the last decade proving she's one of the most versatile actresses working in Hollywood today. These are the roles that made her impossible to ignore.
