She also had voice roles in the animated films Shark Tale (2004) and Kung Fu Panda franchise (2008–2016), and gained praise for her dramatic performances in A Mighty Heart (2007), Changeling (2008), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress, and Maria (2024).

[20] At age 16, after the relationship had ended, Jolie graduated from high school and rented her own apartment before returning to theater studies,[12][18] though in 2004 she referred to this period with the observation, "I am still at heart—and always will be—just a punk kid with tattoos.

"[15] She appeared in five of her brother's student films, made while he attended the USC School of Cinema-Television, as well as in several music videos, such as those for Lenny Kravitz's "Stand by My Woman" (1991), Antonello Venditti's "Alta Marea" (1991), The Lemonheads's "It's About Time" (1993), and Meat Loaf's "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through" (1993).

The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote that Jolie's character "stands out ... because she scowls even more sourly than [her co-stars] and is that rare female hacker who sits intently at her keyboard in a see-through top.

Jack Mathews of the Los Angeles Times wrote of her performance, "It took a lot of hogwash to develop this character, but Jolie, Jon Voight's knockout daughter, has the presence to overcome the stereotype.

"[40] Her next work, as a frontierswoman in the CBS miniseries True Women (1997), was even less successful; writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Robert Strauss dismissed her as "horrid, a fourth-rate Scarlett O'Hara" who relies on "gnashed teeth and overly pouted lips.

[51] She had a minor role as the mechanic ex-girlfriend of a car thief played by Nicolas Cage; The Washington Post writer Stephen Hunter criticized that "all she does in this movie is stand around, cooling down, modeling those fleshy, pulsating muscle-tubes that nest so provocatively around her teeth.

An adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video games, the film required her to learn an English accent and undergo extensive martial arts training to play the archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft.

Salon magazine's Allen Barra considered her ambitious newscaster character a rare attempt at playing a conventional women's role, noting that her performance "doesn't get off the ground until a scene where she goes punk and leads a group of striking bus workers in singing 'Satisfaction'".

[60] Beyond Borders was a critical failure; Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times acknowledged Jolie's ability to "bring electricity and believability to roles," but wrote that "the limbo of a hybrid character, a badly written cardboard person in a fly-infested, blood-and-guts world, completely defeats her.

The film received mixed reviews; The Hollywood Reporter critic Kirk Honeycutt concluded, "Jolie plays a role that definitely feels like something she has already done, but she does add an unmistakable dash of excitement and glamour.

"[62] Jolie made a brief appearance as a fighter pilot in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a science fiction adventure shot entirely with actors in front of a bluescreen, and voiced her first family film, the DreamWorks animation Shark Tale.

[51][65] Following a supporting role as the neglected wife of a CIA officer in Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006), Jolie starred as Mariane Pearl in the documentary-style drama A Mighty Heart (2007).

[51] The film received predominantly favorable reviews; writing for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis noted that Jolie was "perfectly cast as a super-scary, seemingly amoral assassin," adding that "she cuts the kind of disciplinarian figure who can bring boys of all ages to their knees or at least into their theater seats.

Originally written as a male character with Tom Cruise attached to star, agent Salt underwent a gender change after a Columbia Pictures executive suggested Jolie for the role.

[75][87] After directing the documentary A Place in Time (2007), which was distributed through the National Education Association,[88] Jolie made her feature directorial debut with In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011), a love story between a Serb soldier and a Bosniak prisoner, set during the 1992–95 Bosnian War.

[90] Upon release, the film received mixed reviews; Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Jolie deserves significant credit for creating such a powerfully oppressive atmosphere and staging the ghastly events so credibly, even if it is these very strengths that will make people not want to watch what's onscreen.

[51][96] Jolie next completed her second directorial venture, Unbroken (2014), a film about Louis Zamperini (1917–2014), a former Olympic track star and World War II soldier who survived a plane crash and spent two years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.

[97] Based on Laura Hillenbrand's book Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, the film was scripted by the Coen brothers and starred Jack O'Connell.

[150] In December 2010, Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, established the Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Foundation to support conservation work by the Naankuse Wildlife Sanctuary, a nature reserve also located in the Kalahari.

[176] Its member attorneys, called Jolie Legal Fellows, have facilitated child protection efforts in Haiti in the wake of the 2010 earthquake and promoted the development of an inclusive democratic process in Libya following the 2011 revolution.

In May 2012, she launched the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative (PSVI) with Foreign Secretary William Hague,[178] who was inspired to campaign on the issue by her Bosnian war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011).

[184] In May 2016, Jolie was appointed a visiting professor at the London School of Economics to contribute to a postgraduate degree program at the university's Centre on Women, Peace and Security,[185] which she had launched with Hague the previous year.

[187] Jolie is an advocate for the passage of the Justice for All Reauthorization Act of 2022, a law created to improve crime victims' right to evidence and agency reports, forensic science, end the rape kit backlog, and address racial disparities in wrongful convictions in America's criminal legal system.

[188] In September 2020, Jolie made a donation to two young boys who were running a lemonade stand in London to raise money for the people of Yemen, as the country was on the brink of humanitarian crisis caused by the Saudi-led coalition and Houthi rebels.

They had met on the set of Pushing Tin (1999) but did not pursue a relationship at that time, as Thornton was engaged to actress Laura Dern, while Jolie was reportedly dating actor Timothy Hutton, her co-star in Playing God (1997).

[20] After twice visiting Cambodia, while filming Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and on a UNHCR field mission, Jolie returned in November 2001 with her then-husband, Billy Bob Thornton, where they met and subsequently applied to adopt Maddox.

[278] Her Q Score remained above average even when, in 2005, she was accused of ending Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston,[279] at which point her public persona became an unlikely combination of alleged homewrecker, mother, sex symbol, and humanitarian.

[307] Jolie's physical attributes became highly sought-after among western women seeking cosmetic surgery; by 2007, she was considered "the gold standard of beauty",[308] with her full lips remaining the most imitated celebrity feature well into the 2010s.

[332][333] According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and infotainment website Screen Rant, her most critically acclaimed and commercially successful films are Playing by Heart (1998), Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003), Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Alexander (2004), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Beowulf (2007), A Mighty Heart (2007), Changeling (2008), Kung Fu Panda (2008), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010), The Tourist (2010), Maleficent (2014), and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019).