[5] She has collaborated with her husband Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010) and Frances Ha (2012), for which she received a Golden Globe Award nomination, Mistress America (2015), and White Noise (2022).

She also acted in such films as Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress (2011), Woody Allen's To Rome with Love (2012), Rebecca Miller's Maggie's Plan (2015), Pablo Larraín's Jackie (2016), Mike Mills' 20th Century Women (2016), and Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs (2018).

[6][7] As a solo filmmaker, Gerwig has written and directed coming-of-age films Lady Bird (2017) and Little Women (2019), and the fantasy-comedy Barbie (2023), all of which earned nominations for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Barbie, which she co-wrote with Baumbach, became the only film from a solo female director to gross over $1 billion worldwide,[10] and earned her a second Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

She began a partnership with Swanberg, which resulted in the duo's co-writing Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007), and sharing both writing and directing duties on Nights and Weekends (2008).

"[32] In 2012, Gerwig appeared in Woody Allen's film To Rome with Love in the vignette John's Story, acting alongside Jesse Eisenberg and Alec Baldwin.

Gerwig played the title role, and received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her performance.

[34] Richard Brody of The New Yorker wrote "Gerwig may be famed for acting like a nonactor, but she's an extraordinarily accomplished actor (as she proved in Damsels in Distress), and here she puts the movie on her back and carries it from beginning to end, combining the spontaneous inspiration and personal presence of her earlier films".

[38] In May 2014, Gerwig made her stage debut as Becky in Penelope Skinner's The Village Bike at the Lucille Lortel Theatre in New York.

The production earned mixed reviews but her performance was praised by many including Ben Brantley of The New York Times who wrote, "Ms. Gerwig uses the off-balance, open-faced presence she brought to films like Frances Ha and Greenberg to hook us from the moment we set eyes on her."

[43] Gerwig's next starring role was in Rebecca Miller's Maggie's Plan, which premiered as an official selection of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival,[44] opening to positive reviews.

[48] That same year, Gerwig played supporting roles as White House Social Secretary Nancy Tuckerman in Pablo Larraín's drama film Jackie,[49] and Abigail Porter in Mike Mills' coming-of-age comedy 20th Century Women,[50] earning acclaim for both performances, particularly her work in the latter, for which she earned a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress.

[51] In 2017, Gerwig made her solo directorial debut (after having co-directed Nights and Weekends) with the coming-of-age comedy-drama film Lady Bird, which she also wrote.

[63] In June 2018, it was announced that Gerwig would direct a new film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women, whose script she had been previously hired to write.

The film was frequently mentioned as part of an Oscars controversy after no woman (including Gerwig) was nominated for Best Director, a snub that was publicly noted by Hillary Clinton and Saturday Night Live, amongst others.

[70] Gerwig co-starred with Adam Driver in Baumbach's 2022 film White Noise, adapted from the novel of the same name by Don DeLillo for Netflix.

[76] The New Yorker reported in July 2023 that she had been hired by Netflix to write and direct two film adaptations of C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia book series.

"[77] In October 2024, Puck's Matthew Belloni reported that Gerwig had raised concerns to Netflix chairman Dan Lin about giving the film a theatrical release in addition to being on the streamer.

In a behind-the-scenes video on the set of Lady Bird she said, "I tend to start with things from my own life, then pretty quickly they spin out into their own orbit.

[82][83] Her other influences include Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, Carole Lombard, Joan Didion, Patti Smith, Federico Fellini, Chantal Akerman, Claire Denis, Mia Hansen-Løve, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, John Huston, Mike Leigh and Agnès Varda.