In 2005, Bekhti's friends convinced her to go to the casting of
Sheitan, where she was selected for the role of Yasmin, a young
beurette. Released on 1 February 2006,
Sheitan spent 13 weeks in cinemas, selling around 300,000 tickets. That same year, she acted opposite
Smaïn in
Alain Tasma's telefilm
Harkis. The film told the story of an Algerian family who suffers persecution by French military forces, despite having fought on their side in the
Algerian War. Bekhti was interested in the film's subject as several members of her family, including her grandfather, fought in the ranks of the
FLN during the war. That year, she also played Zarka in ''
Paris, je t'aime (2006) (segment "Quais de Seine", directed by Gurinder Chadha) and Mounia in Mauvaise Foi
, playing the sister of Roschdy Zem. On television, she had a small role in an episode of the series Madame le Proviseur
and in the series Les Tricheurs'' alongside Pascal Légitimus. In 2008 she won a Best Actress Award at the Silhouette Festival for her role in
Rachid Hami's ''Choisir d'aimer
. She followed this with Pour l'amour de Dieu
, an Arte telefilm by Ahmed Bouchaala and Zakia Tahri. Bekhti starred in Ali Baba alongside Gérard Jugnot and appeared in Des poupées et des anges'' by
Nora Hamdi. For her role as Lya in the film, she was shortlisted for the
César Award for Best Actress, although she did not make the final list of nominees. That same year, two supporting roles helped increase her visibility: one in
Mesrine: Killer Instinct by
Jean-Francois Richet, and especially that of Djamila in
A Prophet directed by
Jacques Audiard. She played the only female role in the latter film, which won nine
César Awards and the
Grand Prix at
Cannes. Meanwhile, Bekhti returned to television with
Conte de la frustration, starring
Nicolas Cazalé and
Roschdy Zem and a new episode of
Tricheurs. She also participated in the web-series
Twenty Show, the result of a unique partnership between Arte and
MySpace, which was released as a documentary film a year later. In 2009, besides a third appearance in
Tricheurs, she played the role of Myriam in the two-part mini-series
Le choix de Myriam, which portrayed the saga of an Algerian family's arrival in France. After seeing Bekhti's performance in
Mauvaise foi, actress
Géraldine Nakache offered Bekhti a role in
Tout ce qui brille, Nakache's debut film as a director. Released on 24 March 2010,
Tout ce qui brille was a critical and commercial success with over 1.3 million tickets sold. Bekhti went on to win a Golden Swan Award at the
Cabourg Film Festival and the
César Award for Most Promising Actress for her role as Lila. In 2010 she worked in a wide variety of projects. She worked with Alain Tasma again in the telefilm
Vous êtes leur crainte, based on the novel of the same name by
Thierry Jonquet. She also appeared in
Jean-Luc Perréard's
Itinéraire bis, in the musical
Toi, moi, les autres... directed by
Audrey Estrougo and in
Anne De Petrini's debut film
Il reste du jambon?. She starred in the French-
Moroccan co-production
The Source, which competed at the
2011 Cannes Film Festival. In 2011 she was signed as the new face of
L'Oréal, the cosmetic firm. Bekhti was featured in a biopic of
Maria Montessori starring
Jasmine Trinca; it achieved distribution deals in 2024. == Personal life ==