, Smit-McPhee,
Joe Penhall,
John Hillcoat, and Steve Schwartz at the 2009 premiere of
The Road at the
66th Venice International Film Festival. Smit-McPhee's first feature film role was in
Romulus, My Father, which garnered him the 2007
AFI Award for Best Young Actor as well as a Best Actor nomination. For his appearance in
The Road (2009), he received a
Critics' Choice Award nomination for Best Young Actor and a 2010
Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination for Best International Actor. The following year, he starred in
Let Me In, for which he received a 2010
Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Young Actor for his performance in the film. Smit-McPhee then voiced the lead role of Norman in
ParaNorman, a 2012 animated comedy horror film which was nominated for Best Animated Feature for the 2013
Academy Awards, and also received a 2013
BAFTA Award nomination for Best Animated Film. Later the same year, Smit-McPhee had a role in
Dead Europe, which premiered at the 2012
Toronto International Film Festival. His next role came in
The Wilderness of James in the title role of James. He also starred in ''
A Birder's Guide to Everything, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, and played Benvolio in a film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He co-starred in the 20th Century Fox film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'' (2014). In 2013, Smit-McPhee filmed the action science fiction film
Young Ones. The film premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Soon afterwards he appeared in
Slow West, which was released in 2015. In March 2014, he was cast in the
Nine Network's seven-part drama series
Gallipoli which was broadcast in February and March 2015, the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the
Gallipoli landing. He plays 17-year-old Thomas "Tolly" Johnson, who pretends to be older so that he can enlist with his brother Bevan and ends up fighting at Gallipoli in
the campaign that helped create the Anzac legend. Aged 17 when he undertook the role, Smit-McPhee said afterwards that it showed "that soldiers aren't the patriotic brave souls they look like, it's showing them at their most vulnerable in tragic times and when they are terrified". Smit-McPhee played
Nightcrawler in
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), a character whose older version was previously played by
Alan Cumming. Smit-McPhee reprised the role in
Dark Phoenix, which was released in 2019. In 2018, he played the central character Keda, an
Ice Age adolescent who tames a wolf, in
Alpha. In 2021, Smit-McPhee starred in
Jane Campion's film
The Power of the Dog. The film premiered at the
78th Venice International Film Festival, where it opened to critical acclaim. Smit-McPhee's performance in particular received praise, with Carlos Aguilar of
TheWrap calling him "terrifyingly remarkable" and
Peter Bradshaw of
The Guardian writing, "Smit-McPhee brings something inscrutably complex and reserved to his character's behaviour". In March 2022, Smit-McPhee joined
Alfonso Cuarón's Apple+ series
Disclaimer. In 2024, he voiced the character of Gilbert, brother to main character Grace Pudel, in the
adult animated film
Memoir of a Snail. ==Filmography==