[15] In 1982, at the age of 7, Cotillard made her on-screen debut in the short film Le monde des tout-petits,[16][17] directed by Claude Cailloux and broadcast by the French TV channel TF1.

[28] In 2001, she appeared in Pierre Grimblat's romantic war drama film Lisa, playing the title role and younger version of Jeanne Moreau's character, alongside Benoît Magimel and Sagamore Stévenin.

[29] She also starred in Gilles Paquet-Brenner's drama film Pretty Things (Les Jolies Choses), adapted from the work of feminist writer Virginie Despentes, portraying twins of completely opposite characters, Lucie and Marie,[1] for which she earned a second César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress.

[1] Cotillard started the transition into Hollywood when she obtained a supporting role in Tim Burton's 2003 fantasy comedy-drama film Big Fish, in which she played Joséphine, the French wife of Billy Crudup's character, William Bloom.

[1] The production, her first English-language film,[13] allowed her to work with well-established actors such as Helena Bonham Carter, Albert Finney, Ewan McGregor, Jessica Lange and Allison Lohman.

[33] In 2004, she won the Chopard Trophy of Female Revelation at the Cannes Film Festival,[34] narrated the children's audio book Cinq Contes Musicaux Pour les Petits ("Five Musical Tales For the Little Ones") by Isabelle Aboulker,[35] and had supporting roles in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche de Fiançailles), as the vengeful prostitute Tina Lombardi,[36] a femme fatale[32] who goes on a killing spree to avenge her lover's death,[37] for which she won a César Award for Best Supporting Actress,[38] and in Lucile Hadžihalilović's mystery thriller Innocence as the ballet teacher Mademoiselle Éva;[1] both films were acclaimed by critics.

[39][40] In 2005, Cotillard starred in six films: Steve Suissa's Cavalcade, Abel Ferrara's Mary,[1] Richard Berry's The Black Box (La Boîte Noire); Rémi Bezançon's Love Is in the Air (Ma vie en l'air), Fabienne Godet's Burnt Out (Sauf le respect que je vous dois), and Stéphan Guérin-Tillié's Edy.

[59] Following her Oscar win, Cotillard continued her Hollywood career and starred alongside Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in the role of Billie Frechette in Michael Mann's Public Enemies, released in the United States on 1 July 2009.

"[68] The film made US$825 million in worldwide box-office receipts, and Cotillard and DiCaprio's pairing in Inception ranked eighth on the Forbes list of "Hollywood's Top Earning On-Screen Couples.

[21] In 2011, Cotillard co-starred in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris as Pablo Picasso's fictionalised mistress, Adriana, with whom Owen Wilson's character, Gil, falls in love.

[73] In 2012, Cotillard was ranked ninth on the list of the highest-paid French actresses in 2011,[74] and portrayed Talia al Ghul (alongside her Public Enemies co-star Christian Bale) in Christopher Nolan's Batman feature The Dark Knight Rises.

[75][76] Cotillard next portrayed an orca trainer who loses her legs after a work accident in Jacques Audiard's romantic drama Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os), costarring Matthias Schoenaerts.

[78][79] Cotillard received rave reviews for her performance,[80] and Cate Blanchett wrote an op-ed for Variety describing the film as "simply astonishing" and stating that "Marion has created a character of nobility and candour, seamlessly melding herself into a world we could not have known without her.

[101] She starred in Guillaume Canet's Blood Ties in 2013 with Clive Owen, Billy Crudup and her Rust and Bone co-star Matthias Schoenaerts;[102] and had a cameo in Adam McKay's comedy film Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,[103] acting opposite Jim Carrey in the battle scene between rival news teams.

[105] In 2014, she starred in the Dardenne brothers drama Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit),[106] as Sandra, a Belgian factory worker who has just one weekend to convince her co-workers to give up their bonuses so that she can keep her job.

[117] In November 2014, Cotillard participated on Comedy Central's All-Star Non-Denominational Christmas Special, in a duet with Nathan Fielder on the Elvis Presley song "Can't Help Falling in Love".

Variety critic Guy Lodge remarked: "Her deathless sleepwalking scene, staged in minimalist fashion under a gauze of snowflakes in a bare chapel, is played with tender, desolate exhaustion; it deserves to be viewed as near-definitive.

[129] She also played the role of Catherine, the sister-in-law of a gay playwright (portrayed by Gaspard Ulliel), who returns home to tell his family that he is dying in Xavier Dolan's Canadian-French co-production It's Only the End of the World (Juste la fin du Monde).

[134] Also in 2016, Cotillard starred opposite Brad Pitt in Robert Zemeckis's Allied, a spy film set in World War II in which she played Marianne Beausejour, a French Resistance fighter.

[130][135][136] While critical reviews were mixed, Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine wrote that "Pitt and Cotillard give sturdy, coded performances that feel naturalistic, not phony: They understand clearly that their chief mission is to tap the tradition of melodrama, and they take it seriously.

[140][141] In 2017, she also starred in Guillaume Canet's satire comedy Rock'n Roll, and in Arnaud Desplechin's drama Ismael's Ghosts (Les Fantomes d'Ismaël), alongside Mathieu Amalric, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Louis Garrel.

[143] In the 2018 drama Angel Face (Gueule d'ange) by director Vanessa Filho, she portrayed Marlene, a woman who suddenly chooses to abandon her daughter for a man she has just met during yet another night of excess.

[154] In October 2021, Cotillard played the stylist Kim Randall in La Vengeance au Triple Galop, a comedy TV film for France's Canal+, directed by Alex Lutz and Arthur Sanigou.

[158] The company's central aim is to create content around issues such as environmentalism, science, society, health, geopolitics, feminism and gender "that imagine a better future for the world based on ecologically sustainable and socially fair practices".

[178] In June 2024, it was reported that Cotillard will join season 4 of the Apple TV+ series The Morning Show, and that she will play the role of Celine Dumont, who is described as "a savvy operator from a storied European family".

[222] On 26 February 2015, she went to the Philippines along France's then-President François Hollande and actress Mélanie Laurent, to participate on a forum and encourage faster and more determined action on the global challenge of climate change.

[234] In October 2022, Cotillard and other French actresses publicly cut locks from their hair in a video shared on social media with the hashtag #HairForFreedom in support of Iranian protesters following the death of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic of Iran's dress code by not wearing the hijab.

However, she said she had to give up after falling ill because back then she had no idea about nutrition and just quit eating meat overnight and did not know she had to get protein from other sources to avoid a deficiency, which hurt her a lot physically.

[273] In a May 2023 interview with British magazine A Rabbit's Foot, she explained that she slowed down in order to protect her children, as she rarely chooses "lighthearted stories" and her roles were preventing her from living her life fully, citing La Vie en rose (2007) and Macbeth (2015) as examples of that.

[307] In the TV Land sitcom Hot in Cleveland (2014; season 5, episode 12: "I Just Met the Man I'm Going to Marry"), Wendie Malick's character is presenting the Oscars nominees for Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a mise-en-abîme scene and declares "Marion Cotill..., you know the French chick who gets nominated for everything.