Early in her career, she gained worldwide recognition and received the Trophée Chopard from the Cannes Film Festival.

In 2017, she made her German-language debut in Fatih Akin's In the Fade, for which she won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress.

Later, Kruger moved to Paris, attending drama school and working as a model and began learning and speaking fluent French.

Despite her relatively short stature for a model, she managed to land bookings such as advertisements from Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Salvatore Ferragamo, Giorgio Armani, Jil Sander, Christian Dior, Burberry and Louis Vuitton; runway shows from Marc Jacobs, D&G and Sonia Rykiel; and appearances on the cover of Vogue Paris, Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan to her modeling repertoire.

She played Julie Wood in 2003's Michel Vaillant and Lisa in Wicker Park (2004), alongside Josh Hartnett and Rose Byrne.

One of her more high-profile roles to date is her portrayal of Helen of Sparta in Wolfgang Petersen's epic Troy.

In 2009, she co-starred as a German actress turned Allied spy in Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds.

[17] Kruger made a cameo appearance in an April 2010 episode of the Fox show Fringe, in which her former boyfriend, actor Joshua Jackson, starred.

In 2010, Kruger also appeared in Mark Ronson's music video for "Somebody to Love Me", where she plays Boy George.

In the 2011 film Unknown, Kruger starred as Gina, a Bosnian undocumented immigrant, and key character alongside leading actor Liam Neeson.

[18] It was also announced in 2011 that Kruger had replaced Eva Green in the role of Marie Antoinette in the French-language film, Les Adieux à la Reine.

[21] Kruger also portrayed El Paso, Texas, police officer Sonya Cross on FX's The Bridge, which aired in 2013.

In 2017, Kruger made a rare film appearance in Germany in the thriller In the Fade by Fatih Akin, for which she won several awards.