She gained greater recognition with her role in Kasi Lemmons's independent film Eve's Bayou (1997), which earned her a Critics' Choice Movie Award.

As an adult, Smollett starred in the films The Great Debaters (2007), Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013), and Birds of Prey (2020).

[citation needed] The following year, she joined the cast of the CBS sitcom Cosby, for which she won two NAACP Image Awards.

From 2009 to 2011, she was a regular cast member in the DirecTV drama series Friday Night Lights playing Jess Merriweather.

In 2013, Smollett played the leading role in the drama film Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor directed by Tyler Perry.

[20] She portrayed Black Canary in the 2020 film Birds of Prey,[21][22] and Letitia "Leti" Lewis in the 2020 HBO series Lovecraft Country.

[23] In August 2021, it was revealed that Smollett will star in a solo Black Canary Movie from Warner Bros. and DC Films at HBO Max.

[24] In November 2021, she joined Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones in Amazon Studios' courtroom drama project The Burial directed by Maggie Betts.

[27] She was inspired by the HIV/AIDS survivor Hydeia Broadbent, with whom she eventually worked for HIV/AIDS awareness, including for the Black AIDS Institute and Red Cross.