10. The Big Short (2015)
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Nothing kills the momentum in a movie more than a long batch of expository dialogue. In a film as dense as The Big Short, however, audiences need additional context for the weighty concepts it throws around as it dives deep into the whys and wherefores of the 2008 financial crisis—to make it understandable and entertaining. So here’s Margot Robbie in a bubble bath to make it easier. Robbie only has about a minute of screentime here, leveraged to perfection as she explains what a subprime mortgage bond is for anyone who didn’t take a college-level economics course (I did, and I still couldn’t tell you what a subprime mortgage was before The Big Short).
Nevertheless, the scene hinges on Robbie’s charisma to effectively turn the movie into a For Dummies book for a few minutes without making the audience feel bored. It stands out as a heat check from an actor early in her career. Plus, it’s something that’s already had an important shelf life outside of its original use. During the great Gamestop stock situation, the clip once again circulated to help explain why day traders were shorting the company.
9. Focus (2015)
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While there are probably two twists too many in Focus, the thing that works about the 2015 con/romance flick is Margot Robbie’s performance. Hot off her role in Wolf of Wall Street, Focus proved Robbie had the goods to lead a movie; her portrayal of Jess Barrett is full of the skillset she’s now known for. Her great instincts, razor-sharp comedic timing, and playfulness proves she can keep up with the best of the best. Robbie, like Jess, makes all that work come across with the lightest of touches. It’s a shame the rest of the movie can’t keep up with her.
8. Babylon (2022)
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The poster for writer/director Damien Chazelle’s Babylon prominently features Robbie’s Nellie LaRoy in an ecstatic jubilance as she crowd surfs in a red dress through an extravagant party. This simple yet densely layered image is the Babylon experience in a nutshell. Nellie serves as the avatar for the movie’s debaucherous tone in a gonzo performance that channels parts of her Wolf performance—before busting through its walls like the Kool-Aid man into something darker, meaner, and depressing. All the while, Robbie’s brazen commitment makes Nellie leap off the screen, feeling as vivid and alive as the films of Hollywood’s past that Chazelle so clearly adores.
7. Once Upon a Time . . . In Hollywood (2019)
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Tenderness isn’t often a word that comes to mind in Quentin Tarantino’s oeuvre. Yet, the love, care, and consideration he shows to Sharon Tate throughout Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood is bolstered by how unbelievably sympathetic Robbie’s performance is. Robbie helps to give, quite literally, a voice to one of Hollywood’s most tragic stars, showing just how robbed we were of her talent. The film’s most prominent scene with Robbie, set amongst a midday screening of Tate’s The Wrecking Crew, is an incredibly moving sequence showing how poised she was to take over if she hadn’t died in the Manson Family Murders. The way the audience reacts to her, and the warmth in which she reacts to them, perfectly encapsulates Robbie’s talents as a performer.
6. Bombshell (2019)
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2019’s Bombshell, the retelling of the women at Fox News who exposed CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment, is a tightrope act that doesn’t quite work—the tension of the film lies in making heroines of characters who are compromised at best and co-conspirators at worst. But Robbie’s performance as the composite (and fictionalized) Kayla Pospisil is probably the film’s most unimpeachable good part. Kayla, played with wide-eyed wonder by Robbie (and scoring her a second Oscar nomination), is the sacrificial lamb for Bombshell; the scene in which Roger dehumanizes her plays like a horror movie, complete with Robbie’s panicked realization of what’s happening. The emotional stakes of the film, while messy, don’t work without Robbie giving it her all.
5. Harley Quinn — Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, The Suicide Squad
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When we ranked Harley Quinn performances about a year ago, we stated that Robbie’s performance, while good, is overshadowed by how tonally inconsistent her portrayal is from movie to movie. That’s not Robbie’s fault but an unfortunate consequence of shifting studio directives. She’ll always hold the distinction of being the first performer to play the character in live-action, but the work Robbie does here as Harley feels like something she could do in her sleep, for the most part. However, the flower fight sequence in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is a real showcase moment for her and the DCEU.
4. Asteroid City (2023)
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Robbie is only in about two and a half minutes of Wes Anderson’s latest, but her impact is as meteoric as the town in which the film draws its title. Asteroid City is full of otherworldly presences, but the ghost of Robbie’s character—the recently deceased spouse and mother to war photographer Augie Steenbeck (Jason Schwartzman) and their four kids—lingers over the film. Until that is, the actor playing Augie steps out for a cigarette and sees Robbie. The two share a brief conversation, recounting the dialogue from a scene between them, a moment that serves as a thesis for Anderson’s work. Robbie anchors it with a quiet sweetness, twinged with melancholy, resulting in an astonishing moment for her as a performer—and one of the best scenes in any of Anderson’s films.
3. Barbie (2023)
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Barbie pushes Robbie’s stardom into the stratosphere. Playing the lead role in the Greta Gerwig-directed and co-written movie, Barbie is a masterful showcase of Robbie’s comedic and dramatic talents. As Barbie comes to terms with the crushing reality of our real world after spending so much time in the perfect utopia of Barbie Land, Robbie straddles the line between comedy and drama with beautiful ease, effortlessly disappearing into the role. Her performance evokes great coming-of-age stories like Big cleverly and affectingly. Never has a toy felt so alive and real—thanks to a full-hearted commitment from an actor who embraces the (welcome) absurdity, sincerity, and humor of the movie’s central premise.
2, I, Tonya (2017)
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Leave it to a talent like Robbie to effortlessly skate the razor’s edge between villain and victim as the titular Tonya Harding in I, Tonya. Craig Gillespie’s 2017 film dives deep into the history of the infamous Olympic skater, unfolding a lot like Goodfellas in its tone and execution. Robbie takes center ice, making her version of Harding understandable—even if you disagree with her. It’s a crackerjack performance that earned Robbie her first of many Oscar nominations, as she shines as bright as Oscar gold here.
1. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
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You never forget your first and what an initial impression Robbie makes. While it’s not her first role, The Wolf of Wall Street is undoubtedly the film that introduced her to a majority of audiences. While it’s decidedly a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, the moments when Robbie’s on-screen crackle with a spark, as she’s more than capable of keeping up with the actor but often stealing moments out from underneath him in a Martin Scorcese movie! It’s wild to watch a star be born in real-time, and watching Wolf is a reminder that Robbie’s had the goods from the very start.
