After moving to the United States, she led the television series Pan Am (2011–2012) and had her breakthrough in 2013 with Martin Scorsese's black comedy film The Wolf of Wall Street.

She achieved wider recognition with starring roles as Jane Porter in The Legend of Tarzan (2016), and as Harley Quinn in the DC Extended Universe films beginning with Suicide Squad (2016).

Robbie has since starred as an aspiring actress in the period film Babylon (2022) and the titular fashion doll in the fantasy comedy Barbie (2023), which emerged as her highest-grossing release and, as its producer, earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Robbie and her husband, filmmaker Tom Ackerley, co-founded the production company LuckyChap Entertainment in 2014, under which they have produced several films, including I, Tonya, Promising Young Woman (2020), Barbie, and Saltburn (2023), as well as the Hulu series Dollface (2019–2022) and the Netflix miniseries Maid (2021).

In June 2008, she began playing Donna Freedman, a role that was meant to be a guest character, but Robbie was promoted to the regular cast after she made her debut.

[20] Shortly after arriving in America, Robbie landed the role of Laura Cameron, a newly trained flight attendant in the period drama series Pan Am (2011).

[24] Robbie's breakthrough came the same year with the role of Naomi Lapaglia, the wife of protagonist Jordan Belfort, in Martin Scorsese's biographical black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street.

[30] With the aim to produce more female-driven projects, Robbie and her future husband, Tom Ackerley, and their respective longtime friends Sophia Kerr and Josey McNamara, started their own production company LuckyChap Entertainment.

[34] Her next appearance was alongside Michelle Williams and Kristin Scott Thomas in Saul Dibb's war romantic drama Suite Française, a film based on the second part of Irène Némirovsky's 2004 novel of the same name.

Partially based on Robert C. O'Brien's book of the same name, the film follows Ann Burden (Robbie) as she finds herself in an emotionally charged love triangle with the last known survivors of a disaster that wipes out most of civilisation.

[39] In 2016, Robbie reunited with Ficarra and Requa, playing a British war correspondent in the film adaptation of The Taliban Shuffle, called Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, co-starring Tina Fey and Martin Freeman.

[42] Reviews of the film were generally unfavourable,[43] but Manohla Dargis of The New York Times credited Robbie for "holding her own" in her supporting role alongside the all-male cast with Alexander Skarsgård and Samuel L.

[44] Robbie became the first person to portray DC Comics villain Harley Quinn in live-action when she signed on to David Ayer's 2016 superhero film Suicide Squad alongside an ensemble cast that included Will Smith, Jared Leto and Viola Davis.

[45] Robbie began preparing for the role of the supervillainess six months prior to the film shoot; her schedule consisted of gymnastics, boxing, aerial silk training and learning how to hold her breath underwater for five minutes.

[46] Suicide Squad was a commercial success and was tenth-highest-grossing film of 2016 with global revenues of $746.8 million, and Robbie's performance was considered its prime asset.

[47] Writing for Time, Stephanie Zacharek found Robbie to be "a criminally appealing actress, likable in just about every way" despite finding flaws in the character[48] and Christopher Orr of The Atlantic called her performance "genuinely terrific".

[50][51] In October 2016, Robbie hosted the season 42 premiere of NBC's late-night sketch comedy Saturday Night Live; her appearances included a parody of Ivanka Trump.

[65] Yolanda Machado of TheWrap wrote, "[B]ow down to Ronan and Robbie for taking two legendarily complex characters, [...] and completely owning both roles.

[67] Robbie's first release of 2019 was the LuckyChap Entertainment production Dreamland, a poorly received period crime thriller set during the 1930s Dust Bowl.

[69] Robbie was filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's only choice to portray the late actress Sharon Tate in his period film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.

[70] With the Tate–LaBianca murders serving as a backdrop, the film tells the story of a fading character actor (DiCaprio) and his stunt double (Pitt) as they navigate New Hollywood in 1969 Los Angeles.

[77] The film received positive reviews;[78] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Robbie [is] at her best, the arc of her story is so crushing that it stays with you the longest.

Robbie spent the subsequent three years developing the project under her production company, making a concerted effort to hire a female director and screenwriter.

[97][98] In her second film release of the year, she played Nellie LaRoy, an actress inspired by silent movie star Clara Bow, in Damien Chazelle's comedy-drama Babylon.

[101] She received another Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress,[102] although the underperformance of her two major releases that year led some commentators to brand her as "box office poison" at the time.

[115] Robbie will next star alongside Colin Farrell in Kogonada's film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey[116] and Jacob Elordi in Fennell's Wuthering Heights, adapted from the novel.

[132] In 2016, Robbie joined other celebrities and UN Refugee Agency staff in a petition aiming to gather public support for the growing number of families forced to flee conflict and persecution worldwide.

[134] In October 2016, while hosting Saturday Night Live, Robbie made a stand for same-sex marriage in her native Australia wearing a T-shirt that read "Say 'I Do' Down Under", with a map of the country in rainbow colours.

She chose to share the prize with Youngcare, a charity she had previously worked with, and therefore an impact donation was made to fund a project benefiting young people with extensive care needs.

[144][145][146] That same year, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world; her The Wolf of Wall Street director Martin Scorsese penned the article in the magazine, referring to Robbie as having "a unique audacity that surprises and challenges and just burns like a brand into every character she plays.