Her portrayal of a grieving mother navigating faith and despair won her Best Actress at the 60th Cannes Film Festival, making her the first Korean actor to receive such recognition.

[3][4] Jeon continued to challenge herself with daring roles, such as the remake of The Housemaid (2010), Way Back Home (2013), noir romance The Shameless (2015), and Birthday (2019).

[9] In 1995, she gained some recognition after playing the heroine's younger sister in KBS2's hit drama Our Sunny Days of Youth, which recorded its highest viewership rating of 62.7 percent.

[21] Commenting on her successful year, The Korea Herald noted, "It is rare for a movie and a drama with the same leading actor or actress to become major hits at the same time.

Her fierce and fearless portrayal of a widowed mother who struggles to rearrange her life after the tragic deaths of her husband and son received universal critical acclaim.

[38] In 2011, Jeon played a female con artist who risks her life for ten days for a final deal with a cold-hearted debt collector in Countdown.

[42] In 2013, after a two-year break, Jeon returned with Bang Eun-jin's Way Back Home, a film based on the true story of a housewife who was imprisoned for two years on the island of Martinique after being wrongly arrested for drug smuggling at Paris's Orly Airport in 2004.

[45][46][47][48] In 2015, Jeon starred in The Shameless, a thriller that explores the unexpected and carnal attraction that develops between a detective and the girlfriend of the murderer that he investigates.

The same year, she played a blind swordswoman in the Goryeo-set revenge period drama Memories of the Sword, her third collaboration with Park Heung-sik and her second with Lee Byung-hun.

[55][56] Jeon then made a return to the small screen after twelve years in the 2016 Korean remake of the American legal drama The Good Wife.

[57] She was praised for displaying a wide range of emotions and agony of a housewife who is forced to become a lawyer again after her husband is mired in a scandal and put behind bars.

[58][59] After a three-year break, Jeon reunited with Sul Kyung-gu in drama film Birthday, marking her second collaboration with Sol eighteen years after I Wish I Had a Wife.

In early 2020, Jeon starred in Beasts Clawing at Straws, a mystery thriller based on Keisuke Sone's novel, alongside Jung Woo-sung.

[72] In the same year, Jeon stars in Netflix crime action film Kill Boksoon in the title role, as a professional assassin, opposite Sul Kyung-gu, Esom, and Koo Kyo-hwan.

[73][74][75] Jeon married businessman and professional car racer Kang Shi-kyu, who is nine years her senior, in a private wedding ceremony at Shilla Hotel on March 11, 2007.