The 1990s/2000s Sabry’s breakthrough in the film industry was in 1994 at the age of 13 in
The Silences of the Palace (Samt El Qosour), the debut feature of
Moufida Tlatli. The Tunisian film won numerous awards including the
Cannes Film Festival’s
Camera d’Or and earned Sabry the Best Actress award at the
Carthage Film Festival that year. The film is considered a classic in Arab Cinema and in 2021 was ranked 1st on the list of the 100 Best Women's Films in the history of Arab Cinema and 5th in the
Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF)'s publication ''Cinema of Passion: Dubai's list of the 100 Most Important Arab Films''. After
The Silences of the Palace, Sabry took a break from acting to continue her studies. She returned to the big screen in Tlatli’s second feature,
The Season of Men (2000) a feminist critique of the traditional code of behavior that many Tunisian women are subjected to. It premiered at
Cannes'
Un Certain Regard. In 2001 Sabry received her law degree from
Tunis University and went on to appear in her first Egyptian film,
Diary Of A Teenager (
Mothakerat Morahkah) helmed by
Inas El-Degheidy, whose films often center around female characters and with frank depictions of sexuality. The story of a teenage girl (Sabry) who embarks on a sexual relationship proved to be controversial in Egypt for breaking taboos around pre-marital sex. Sabry was surprised by the reaction: “I came from a [Tunisian] cinema that was much more progressive and visually much more daring as well as in the storytelling. I was very ignorant about Egyptian cinema because I was Francophone, Francophile, and more into Western movies so I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.” Despite the controversy, the film was a commercial success and her breakthrough film in Egypt. In the early 2000s, Sabry was traveling back and forth between Egypt and Tunisia juggling both studies and acting. While having put aside her plans of joining the Tunisian Foreign Service to pursue acting full-time, she recognized the importance of intellectual property (IP) to a career in the film industry, and received a master’s degree in
intellectual property and
copyright law in 2004. In 2002 Sabry starred in
Daoud Abdel Sayed’s Egyptian comedy drama
A Citizen, A Detective And A Thief (Mowaten we Mokhber we Haramy) alongside the popular musician-actor
Shaaban Abdel Rehim. This film too, proved controversial around its depiction of sex, as well as of censorship and police ineptitude. It was nonetheless a box office hit in Egypt and the region. Sabry’s first blockbuster came in 2006 with
The Yacoubian Building (Oumaret Yacoubian),
Marwan Hamad’s international breakthrough feature adapted from
Alaa Al Aswany’s eponymous 2007 social
satire set against the backdrop of an apartment building in downtown Cairo. It was Egypt’s most expensive film to date and went on to set a record for the biggest debut ever for an Egyptian theatrical release. It was also the first of a series of collaborations between Sabry and Hamad. A lover of the short film format, In 2013,
Arabian Business listed her among the "100 most powerful Arab Women". In 2014 she became a partner of Tayarah, one of Egypt's biggest platforms for video and digital content production. The Tunisian drama
The Flower Of Aleppo (2016) was the first film produced under the banner of Salam Production. Sabry played the lead role of a mother who disguises herself as a
Jihadi woman to rescue her teenage son who had joined
ISIS in
Aleppo, Syria. In 2019, Sabry appeared in two notable, though vastly different films. In
The Blue Elephant 2, an Egyptian horror film by Marwan Hamad, she starred alongside a cast of Egyptian stars that included
Karim Abdel Aziz,
Nelly Karim, and
Tara Emad. A sequel to Hamad's
The Blue Elephant (2014), it became the highest-earning film in Egyptian history. In ''
Noura's Dream'' a small Tunisian independent film, she plays a working-class mother of three in the wake of the
Arab Spring whose abusive husband is being released from prison early. The film won the Golden Tanit award and the Best Actress Award for Sabry at the
Carthage Film Festival. About working in Tunisia, Sabry said: “I try to work there every three to four years because I don’t want to stay away longer. It’s always a pleasure because it’s a small industry. Not even an industry, it’s a craftsmanship; small films with very low budgets and no star system. It’s a reality check and only your performance matters. I can also speak in my mother tongue, which always helps me in my performance.” In 2023, Sabry starred in Tunisian director
Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary
Four Daughters about a mother and two daughters’ recounting of the traumatic loss of the two older daughters who left the family to join ISIS. Sabry is one of several actresses who played out key scenes involving the mother and departed sisters. Universally acclaimed,
Four Daughters took home three prizes at
Cannes 2023 and was in contention for both Best Documentary and
Best International Feature Film at the
2023 Oscars. In 2024 Sabry took on the starring role of Amira in
Moftaraq Toroq (
Crossroads), the Arabic adaptation of the popular American series
The Good Wife. It launched in June to top ratings across the MENA region. Sabry and the writers were intentional in adapting the storyline to regional cultural norms. For example, they tread carefully in depicting how her character interacted with her boss—a relationship filled with sexual tension in the original series. Later in 2024, she returned to the small screen in season two of
Finding Ola and once again serving as executive producer. That same year, Sabry appeared in
Aserb: The Squadron, an Egyptian action film based on the actual events of the massacre of 21
Egyptian Copts in Libya and the ensuing Egyptian military operations against the perpetrators. Sabry, who had always represented herself, signed with the Hollywood talent agency
CAA in 2023 explaining that, in addition to identifying more acting roles, she was interested in securing more female-driven projects for her Salam Production company.In November, it was announced that Sabry was returning to the big screen starring opposite
Ahmed Helmy in
His Weakest Creatures by director Omar Hilal. In December she received the Omar Sharif Award by the
Golden Globes at the
Red Sea Film Festival. Launched the previous year, the award honors outstanding achievements in Arab cinema and television. In February 2026, Sabry appeared in
Manna’a (
Immunity), a thriller television series in which she plays the lead role of a drug kingpin in 1980s Cairo. == Philanthropy ==