2012–2016: Initial roles After appearing with her brother in the film
Existence (2012), McKenzie portrayed teenager
Louise Nicholas in the television film
Consent: The Louise Nicholas Story (2014). In 2015, she played
Pixie Hannah in the soap opera
Shortland Street. The following year, she played the titular character in the children's comedy web series ''
Lucy Lewis Can't Lose''.
2018–present: Leave No Trace and breakthrough She gained recognition for her portrayal as a daughter of a war veteran in
Debra Granik's
Leave No Trace (2018) opposite
Ben Foster. Her performance received critical acclaim and won her the
National Board of Review Award for Breakthrough Performance. In 2019, McKenzie joined the ensemble cast of
Netflix's
The King as
Queen Philippa of Denmark, starring alongside
Timothée Chalamet,
Joel Edgerton and
Robert Pattinson. She next played the role of a young Jewish girl who hides in the home of the title character in
Taika Waititi's satirical comedy-drama
Jojo Rabbit (2019) for which she obtained a nomination at the
Critics' Choice Movie Award as Best Young Actress. In August 2018, McKenzie was cast in
Top Gun: Maverick, but dropped out of the film after signing onto
Lost Girls (2020). In 2021, she starred in the
M. Night Shyamalan's thriller
Old, and played the lead character in
Edgar Wright's psychological horror film
Last Night in Soho, opposite
Anya Taylor-Joy. In the same year, she joined
John Crowley's televised adaptation of
Kate Atkinson's
novel Life After Life for
BBC Two, which premiered in 2022. In 2023, McKenzie joined the main cast of the second season of
Pantheon, a science fiction drama adaptation of the series of short stories by
Ken Liu, voicing MIST, the first C.I. (computational intelligence) born of U.I. (uploaded intelligence). In the same year, she played the lead character in William Oldroyd's psychological thriller
Eileen, opposite
Anne Hathaway. For her performance, she received positive reviews, with David Fear of
Rolling Stone describing her as "such an adept performer at sketching out people that are somehow both sheltered and jaded that you have a clear picture of her even before her dark twin shows up." McKenzie portrayed British
embryologist Jean Purdy in the 2024 film
Joy, based on the true story of the world's first
in vitro fertilisation baby. In 2025, McKenzie starred as Rose Davenport in the British period comedy
Fackham Hall, written by comedian
Jimmy Carr. Later that year, she starred opposite
Amanda Seyfried in the historical drama musical film
The Testament of Ann Lee directed by
Mona Fastvold. In 2026, McKenzie will star opposite
Andrew Garfield in
Paul Greengrass' historical action film
The Uprising and she also will star opposite
Maika Monroe in the horror film
Victorian Psycho, which is set to release in September 25th, 2026. == Influences ==