1982–1999: Early roles and breakthrough In 1982, at the age of 6, Cotillard made her on-screen debut in the short film
Le monde des tout-petits, directed by Claude Cailloux and broadcast by the French TV channel
TF1. The following year, she appeared in another short film for TF1,
Lucie, also directed by Cailloux. After small appearances and performances in theatre, Cotillard had occasional, minor roles in television series such as
Highlander in 1993, where she had her first English-speaking role aged 17. Also in 1996, she had her first leading role in the television film
Chloé, directed by
Dennis Berry and opposite
Anna Karina, with Cotillard starring as a teenage runaway who is forced into prostitution. In 1998, she appeared in
Gérard Pirès' action comedy
Taxi, playing Lilly Bertineau, the girlfriend of delivery boy Daniel, played by
Samy Naceri. The film was a box office hit in France with over 6 millions tickets sold, and Cotillard was nominated for a
César Award for Most Promising Actress. She reprised the role in
Taxi 2 (2000) and
Taxi 3 (2003). In 1999, Cotillard ventured into science fiction with
Alexandre Aja's post-apocalyptic romantic drama
Furia. In 2001, she appeared in Pierre Grimblat's romantic war drama film
Lisa, playing the title role and younger version of
Jeanne Moreau's character, alongside
Benoît Magimel and
Sagamore Stévenin. She also starred in
Gilles Paquet-Brenner's drama film
Pretty Things (
Les Jolies Choses), adapted from the work of feminist writer
Virginie Despentes, portraying twins of completely opposite characters, Lucie and Marie, In 2002, Cotillard starred in
Guillaume Nicloux's thriller
A Private Affair (
Une Affaire Privée), in which she portrayed the mysterious Clarisse. and marked a turn for Cotillard, In 2004, she won the
Chopard Trophy of Female Revelation at the
Cannes Film Festival, narrated the children's audio book
Cinq Contes Musicaux Pour les Petits ("Five Musical Tales For the Little Ones") by
Isabelle Aboulker, and had supporting roles in
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's
A Very Long Engagement (
Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles), as the vengeful prostitute Tina Lombardi, a
femme fatale who goes on a killing spree to avenge her lover's death, for which she won a
César Award for Best Supporting Actress, and in
Lucile Hadžihalilović's mystery thriller
Innocence as the ballet teacher Mademoiselle Éva; In 2005, Cotillard starred in six films: Steve Suissa's
Cavalcade,
Abel Ferrara's
Mary, She reprised the role several times when performing the oratorio in different countries in the following years. In 2006, the actress took on significant roles in four feature films, including
Ridley Scott's romantic dramedy
A Good Year, in which she had her major English-language role up to that point, Fanny Chenal, a French café owner in a small
Provençal town, opposite
Russell Crowe as a Londoner who inherits a local property. for which she learned how to play the cello for her role. Cotillard was chosen by director
Olivier Dahan to star as French singer
Édith Piaf in his biographical film before he had even met the actress, after he noticed a similarity between Piaf's and Cotillard's eyes. It was dubbed "the most awaited film of 2007" in France, where some critics said Cotillard had
reincarnated Édith Piaf to sing one last time on stage. During the film's premiere at the
2007 Berlin International Film Festival, Cotillard was in attendance and received a 15-minute standing ovation. Hollywood talent agent
Hylda Queally signed Cotillard shortly after the premiere at the festival.
La Vie en Rose was a box office hit in France, with more than 5 million admissions, and made US$86 million worldwide on a US$25 million budget. Cotillard became the first actress to win a
Golden Globe for a non-English language performance since 1972 (when
Liv Ullmann won for
The Emigrants), and also the first person to win a Golden Globe for a (Comedy or Musical) non-English language performance. On 10 February 2008, Cotillard became the first French actress since
Stéphane Audran in 1973 to be awarded the
BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. At the
Academy Awards, she won
Best Actress, becoming the first woman and second person (after
Adrien Brody in
The Pianist six years earlier) to win both a César and an Oscar for the same performance. She is the second French actress to win this award, and the third overall to win an Oscar, after
Simone Signoret in 1960 and
Juliette Binoche in 1997. She is the first Best Actress Oscar winner for a non-English language performance since
Sophia Loren in 1961. She is also the first and (as of 2026) only winner of an Academy Award for a French-language performance. On 23 June 2008, Cotillard was one of 105 individuals invited to join the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Following her Oscar win, Cotillard continued her Hollywood career and starred alongside
Johnny Depp and
Christian Bale in the role of
Billie Frechette in
Michael Mann's
Public Enemies, released in the United States on 1 July 2009. and "
Take It All".
Time magazine ranked her performance in
Nine as the fifth best female performance of 2009, behind
Mo'Nique,
Carey Mulligan,
Saoirse Ronan and
Meryl Streep. She won the Desert Palm Achievement Actress Award at the 2010
Palm Springs International Film Festival – her second prize from the festival – and was nominated for a
Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her work in
Nine. Cotillard appeared on the cover of the November 2009 issue of
Vogue with her
Nine co-stars, and on the magazine's July 2010 cover by herself.
2010–2019: Established actress Cotillard was the Honorary President of the
35th César Awards ceremony, held on 27 February 2010. She played Mal Cobb, a projection of Dom Cobb (
Leonardo DiCaprio)'s deceased wife, in
Christopher Nolan's film
Inception, released on 16 July 2010. Nolan described Mal as "the essence of the
femme fatale", and DiCaprio praised Cotillard, saying "she can be strong and vulnerable and hopeful and heartbreaking all in the same moment, which was perfect for all the contradictions of her character." The film made US$825 million in worldwide box-office receipts, and Cotillard and DiCaprio's pairing in
Inception ranked eighth on the
Forbes list of "Hollywood's Top Earning On-Screen Couples". That same year, she also starred as Marie, an environmentalist, in Guillaume Canet's drama
Little White Lies (
Les petits mouchoirs). That same year, she also appeared alongside
Kate Winslet,
Jude Law,
Gwyneth Paltrow and
Matt Damon in
Steven Soderbergh's thriller
Contagion; and had the top rank on
Le Figaros 2011 list of the highest-paid French actors of 2010, the first time in nine years that a female had topped the list. She also tied with Kate Winslet as the highest-paid foreign actress in Hollywood. In 2012, Cotillard was ranked ninth on the list of the highest-paid French actresses in 2011, and portrayed
Talia al Ghul (alongside her
Public Enemies co-star Christian Bale) in Christopher Nolan's
Batman feature
The Dark Knight Rises. Cotillard next portrayed an orca trainer who loses her legs after a work accident in
Jacques Audiard's romantic drama
Rust and Bone (''De rouille et d'os
), costarring Matthias Schoenaerts. The film premiered in the main competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and received a 10-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening. Cotillard received rave reviews for her performance, and Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety'' describing the film as "simply astonishing" and stating that "Marion has created a character of nobility and candour, seamlessly melding herself into a world we could not have known without her. Her performance is as unexpected and as unsentimental and raw as the film itself." She earned a fifth
César Award nomination, a fourth
Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, a third
Golden Globe nomination (her first for Best Actress – Drama), and her second
Critics' Choice Award and
Lumière Award nominations. James Kaelan of
MovieMaker magazine wrote that it was a travesty that Cotillard was not nominated for an
Academy Award for
Rust and Bone. Cotillard also received several other honours and career tributes in 2012, at the
Telluride Film Festival,
Hollywood Film Festival,
AFI Fest,
Gotham Awards, and
Harper's Bazaar Awards. In 2013, Cotillard was named Woman of the Year by
Harvard's student society
Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and
Le Figaro also ranked her the second highest-paid actress in France in 2012 and the seventh highest-paid actor overall. In May 2013, she appeared with
Gary Oldman, her co-star in
The Dark Knight Rises, in the controversial music video for "
The Next Day" by
David Bowie. Cotillard had her first leading role in an American movie in
James Gray's
The Immigrant as Polish-born Ewa Cybulska, who emigrates hoping to experience the American dream in 1920s New York. James Gray wrote the script especially for Cotillard after meeting her at a French restaurant with her boyfriend. Cotillard had to learn 20 pages of Polish dialogue for her role, and Gray stated that she is the best actor he's ever worked with. Her performance was widely acclaimed, and she was awarded the
New York Film Critics Circle Award, the
National Society of Film Critics Award, the
Toronto Film Critics Association Award and was nominated for an
Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress in 2015. She starred in Guillaume Canet's
Blood Ties in 2013 with
Clive Owen,
Billy Crudup and her
Rust and Bone co-star Matthias Schoenaerts; and had a cameo in
Adam McKay's comedy film
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, acting opposite
Jim Carrey in the battle scene between rival news teams. In December 2013, Cotillard was a member of the
13th Marrakech Film Festival jury presided by
Martin Scorsese. In 2014, she starred in the
Dardenne brothers drama
Two Days, One Night (
Deux jours, une nuit), as Sandra, a Belgian factory worker who has just one weekend to convince her co-workers to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job. The film premiered in the main competition at the
2014 Cannes Film Festival and earned a 15-minute standing ovation, with Cotillard's performance praised as "a career-high performance", and favored to win the festival's Best Actress prize, which ended up going to
Julianne Moore for
Maps to the Stars. and a sixth
César Award nomination. Her performances in both
The Immigrant and
Two Days, One Night shared the fourth spot on
Times list of Best Movie Performances of 2014. In November 2014, Cotillard participated on ''
Comedy Central's All-Star Non-Denominational Christmas Special'', in a duet with
Nathan Fielder on the
Elvis Presley song "
Can't Help Falling in Love". In 2015, Cotillard took on the role of
Lady Macbeth in a
film adaptation of
William Shakespeare's
play, directed by
Justin Kurzel and starring
Michael Fassbender in the title role. The film premiered at the
Cannes Film Festival and Cotillard's performance earned her a nomination for the
British Independent Film Award for Best Actress, and high praise from critics, particularly for her "Out, Damned Spot" monologue.
Variety critic Guy Lodge remarked: "Her deathless sleepwalking scene, staged in minimalist fashion under a gauze of snowflakes in a bare chapel, is played with tender, desolate exhaustion; it deserves to be viewed as near-definitive." That same year, she starred in the
New York Philharmonic's production of
Arthur Honegger's oratorio
Joan of Arc at the Stake, and voiced the roles of The Rose in both the English and French versions of
Mark Osborne's
The Little Prince, Scarlet Overkill in the French version of
Minions; and April, the title character in the French-Canadian-Belgian 3D animated film
April and the Extraordinary World (
Avril et le Monde Truqué). In 2016, Cotillard played Gabrielle, a free-spirited woman in a convenience marriage in
Nicole Garcia's romantic drama
From the Land of the Moon (
Mal de Pierres), an adaptation of the bestselling Italian novel
Mal di Pietre by
Milena Agus, which marked her return to French cinema after 2012's
Rust and Bone, and earned her a seventh
César Award nomination. She also played the role of Catherine, the sister-in-law of a gay playwright (portrayed by
Gaspard Ulliel), who returns home to tell his family that he is dying in
Xavier Dolan's Canadian-French co-production ''
It's Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du Monde
). Both films premiered in main competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, to polarized reactions from critics. It's Only the End of the World'' was a box office hit in France with over 1 million tickets sold. Also in 2016, Cotillard starred opposite
Brad Pitt in
Robert Zemeckis's
Allied, a spy film set in
World War II in which she played Marianne Beausejour, a
French Resistance fighter. While critical reviews were mixed, Stephanie Zacharek of
Time magazine wrote that "Pitt and Cotillard give sturdy, coded performances that feel naturalistic, not phony: They understand clearly that their chief mission is to tap the tradition of melodrama, and they take it seriously. Somehow, almost incomprehensibly, it all works.
Allied looks old but smells new, and the scent is heady." The film grossed US$120 million worldwide. That same year, Cotillard reteamed with
Macbeth director Justin Kurzel and co-star Michael Fassbender in the film adaptation of the video game ''
Assassin's Creed''. On 30 January 2017, Cotillard was honoured with a special award for her career at the
22nd Lumière Awards in France. In 2017, she also starred in Guillaume Canet's satire comedy ''
Rock'n Roll'', and in
Arnaud Desplechin's drama ''
Ismael's Ghosts (Les Fantomes d'Ismaël
), alongside Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Louis Garrel. The Hollywood Reporter'', in its review for the former film, asserted that "Cotillard offers up such a sincere performance that you can't help but laugh". In the 2018 drama
Angel Face (''Gueule d'ange
) by director Vanessa Filho, she portrayed Marlene, a woman who suddenly chooses to abandon her daughter for a man she has just met during yet another night of excess. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2019, Cotillard was a member of the jury of the Chopard Trophy at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. That same year, she reprised the role of Marie in Little White Lies 2'', sequel to 2010's
Little White Lies directed by Guillaume Canet.
2020–present In 2020, Cotillard voiced the fox Tutu in the comedy film
Dolittle, directed by
Stephen Gaghan. In 2021, she starred as opera singer Ann Defrasnoux alongside
Adam Driver in the musical film
Annette directed by
Leos Carax, which earned her a
Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. The songs "So May We Start" and "We Love Each Other So Much", performed by Cotillard and Driver, were released as singles. Cotillard produced the documentary
Bigger Than Us, directed by
Flore Vasseur, which explores the social movement of young people fighting for change in the 21st century. The documentary was released in France on 22 September 2021 following its world premiere at the
2021 Cannes Film Festival, Cotillard voiced German artist
Charlotte Salomon in the French version of the animated biographical film
Charlotte, directed by Eric Warin and Tahir Rana, which follows the last 10 years of Salomon's life, a Jewish woman who struggled with depression amid World War II and the Holocaust while exiled in the South of France. Cotillard was also an executive producer on the film that made its world premiere at the
Toronto International Film Festival in September 2021. Cotillard made her third collaboration with director Arnaud Desplechin in the film
Brother and Sister (
Frère et Sœur), which follows two siblings, Alice and Louis, played by Cotillard and
Melvil Poupaud, who are forced to reunite after the death of their parents following two decades of shared silence. The film premiered in the main competition at the
2022 Cannes Film Festival in May 2022. During the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Cotillard launched alongside filmmaker
Cyril Dion and producer Magali Payen her new production company, Newtopia. The company's central aim is to create content around issues such as environmentalism, science, society, health, geopolitics, feminism and gender "that imagine a better future for the world based on ecologically sustainable and socially fair practices". In June 2022, Cotillard played Joan of Arc in the oratorio
Joan of Arc at the Stake directed by
Juanjo Mena at the
Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain. She also voiced
Coco Chanel in
Rencontre(s), a 15-minute immersive virtual reality project directed by Mathias Chelebourg, which premiered at the
79th Venice Film Festival in September 2022. attending an event for
Little Girl Blue at the
2023 Cannes Film Festival In 2023, she appeared in the
Apple TV+ climate-change anthology series
Extrapolations, and played
Cleopatra in Guillaume Canet's adventure comedy film
Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. and portrayed
Solange d'Ayen, the fashion editor of French
Vogue magazine in the World War II biographical drama
Lee, directed by
Ellen Kuras and starring
Kate Winslet as photographer
Lee Miller. Cotillard portrayed French writer and photographer
Carole Achache in the
docudrama Little Girl Blue, directed by Carole's daughter,
Mona Achache, which had its world premiere at the
2023 Cannes Film Festival in the Special Screenings section. Cotillard's performance in the film was praised by critics,
Libération calling her "impeccable"; and
The Hollywood Reporter writing that her performance is "a full-on
Method immersion that climaxes with a wrenching breakdown scene that seems to close some kind of gap between the two women." She earned her eight César Award nomination for Best Actress for
Little Girl Blue at the
2024 César Awards, becoming the first actress to be nominated for a documentary film. In December 2023, Cotillard was a member of the jury of the Prix André Bazin by French film magazine
Cahiers du Cinéma. In May 2024, Cotillard narrated the documentary
Olympics! The French Games, directed by Mickaël Gamrasni, which premiered at the
2024 Cannes Film Festival. In June 2024, Cotillard reprised her role as
Joan of Arc in the oratorio
Joan of Arc at the Stake in Berlin with the
Berlin Philharmonic, and in December 2024, she reprised the role in Paris at the
Paris Philharmonic Hall. In 2025, Cotillard starred in
Lucile Hadžihalilović's fantasy-drama
The Ice Tower, their second collaboration after
Innocence (2004), in which she plays an actress who is playing The Snow Queen in a film adaptation of
Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale of
the same title. She also voiced Dijon on season 2 of the animated series
Sausage Party: Foodtopia, and joined season 4 of the Apple TV+ series
The Morning Show playing the role of Celine Dumont, who is described as "a savvy operator from a storied European family". In 2026, Cotillard will star in
Bertrand Mandico's
Roma elastica, in Guillaume Canet's psychological thriller film
Karma, and in Nicole Garcia's comedy-drama
Milo. In July 2024, it was reported that Cotillard will star in
Christopher McQuarrie's World War II film
Broadsword. In February 2026, Cotillard started shooting
Emmanuelle Bercot's historical drama ''
L'Enragé'', based on the book of the same name by
Sorj Chalandon. ==Acting credits and accolades==