Malhotra received nominations for the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress for her leading roles in the drama Photograph (2019) and the black comedy Ludo (2020).

[5] Malhotra was selected for Nitesh Tiwari's biographical sports film Dangal along with Fatima Sana Shaikh, who was also relatively new.

[6] Released in 2016, Dangal received critical acclaim and became the highest-grossing Indian film ever with earnings of more than ₹2,000 crore (US$230 million) worldwide.

[11] The two stayed in Ronsi village near Jaipur and learned the Rajasthani dialect; they also got accustomed to milking buffaloes, thatching roofs, plastering the walls with dung and walking for long distances while balancing matkas full of water on their head and another around their waist.

[13] Critic Raja Sen found Malhotra to be a "fearless actress" and thought that she "plays this character with unhinged enthusiasm".

[14] In the same year, she took on a supporting role in Amit Sharma's critically and commercially successful comedy Badhaai Ho, starring Ayushmann Khurrana.

The film follows a street photographer Rafi, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who tries to convince a student Miloni (Malhotra) to pose as his fiancée so that his grandmother stops pressuring him to get married.

[21] Mike McCahill of The Guardian found Malhotra to be "quietly affecting" in her part and commended her for holding her own opposite her co-star.

[23] India Today's Nairita Mukherjee took note of the "outstanding camaraderie" between Malhotra and her co-star Aditya Roy Kapur.

[31] Malhotra had a small role opposite Rajkummar Rao in the thriller HIT: The First Case, a remake of the Telugu film of the same name.

[32][33] In 2023, Malhotra had a starring role as a small-town cop in pursuit of a missing jackfruit in the Netflix satirical film Kathal.

[39] Anuj Kumar of The Hindu reviewed, "Malhotra as his lovely, supportive wife Siloo proves equal to Vicky’s charm".

"[45] Shilpa Dubey of Femina stated, "Contradicting the cookie-cutter style big-screen debuts, her onset in Bollywood was a refreshing game-changer in Dangal.