Movie and TV fans look for the best young actors in Hollywood to get the performances that will move them and excite them about future projects, especially ones that still have a long way to go in their development toward making it to the screen. These are some of the biggest breakout stars who arrived on the scene in the 2010s.
Updated on September 25th, 2022 by Jom Elauria: There have been a lot of great projects in the 2010s that showcased undeniable talent from young actors. These include Netflix’s Stranger Things, which launched the career of Millie Bobby Brown and Game of Thrones, which had amazing young actresses like Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner. Without a doubt, the 2010s established the careers of many amazing young actors who continue to wow audiences to this day.
Sadie Sink
Sadie Sink is just one of several young actors who achieved who achieved mainstream popularity thanks to the hit Netflix show Stranger Things. Sink joined the Hawkins crew in season 2 and played the spunky newcomer Max Mayfield.
Her character on Stranger Things soon became a fan favorite. Sink continued to star in other projects, such as Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy, where she was commended for her stellar performance. Sink also played a leading role in the Taylor Swift short film All Too Well: The Short Film where she was partnered with Teen Wolf star Dylan O’Brien.
Dove Cameron
There are a lot of successful young actors who got their big break on Disney Channel. This includes Dove Cameron, who played a challenging dual role in the show Liv and Maddie. Cameron was also cast as Maleficent’s daughter Mal in The Descendants franchise.
Cameron actually debuted in the Emmy-winning show Shameless as she appeared on two episodes as Holly Herkimer, a former friend of the main character Debbie Gallagher. Apart from acting on TV, film, and stage, Cameron is also a former Disney Channel star who has a successful singing career
Marsai Martin
Marsai Martin is most known for playing the intimidating but likable Diane Johnson on the ABC sitcom Black-ish. She actually debuted on the show and acted alongside Hollywood icons like Tracee Ellis Ross and Jennifer Lewis. Diane was Martin’s breakthrough role and she even received a Screen Actors Guild Award for her incredible performance.
Martin has also starred in a number of feature films, such as 2019’s Little, which she also executively produced. She’s set to star in the film Fantasy Football, along with Kelly Rowland and Omari Hardwick. At a young age, Martin has already achieved so much and her fans are more than excited to see what the future holds for her.
Amandla Stenberg
There are a lot of actors who got their big break on the book-to-movie adaptation The Hunger Games, and this includes Amandla Stenberg. Stenberg might have played a small role as Rue in The Hunger Games, but she sure made a mark as the scenes involving her character were some of the highest emotional points of the film.
However, Stenberg made her debut in the Luc Besson film Columbiana. She’s also played the leading role in a number of films, such as Everything, Everything and The Darkest Minds.
Elsie Fisher
Elsie Fisher made her magical movie debut in Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade. While she had a few acting jobs before 2010, she didn't really show up on anyone's radar until Eighth Grade hit theaters in 2018. As Kayla Day, the struggling eighth-grade protagonist in this dramedy, Fisher not only owns the screen but the story. For once a real teenager was cast to play a real teenager.
She is the star and appears in just about every frame of the film. That's quite the feat since most of her major roles until Eighth Grade were voiceover parts. There's no doubt Fisher will grace the screen many times in the coming decade.
Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner
The Stark sisters entered our pop culture lives and hearts in 2011 when Game of Thrones premiered on HBO. Until they were cast in the epic fantasy drama neither Williams nor Turner acted on screen before. Fans got to watch their characters grow as well as the actresses, who became extraordinary artists in their own right.
From teenagers to young women and from children to real actors, it was a privilege to watch it all unfold. From cute to commanding, both Williams and Turner seem ready to take on all sorts of new challenges in the next ten years.
Finn Wolfhard
Finn Wolfhard's big break came when he was cast on the Netflix's hit series Stranger Things, which premiered in 2016. Since dazzling viewers on the small screen Wolfhard, has also appeared in the big budget adaptation of Stephen King's It and The Goldfinch.
Going into 2020, Wolfhard appears in The Turn of the Screw and Ghostbusters: Afterlife (not to mention another season of Stranger Things). If the young actor may have been busy the last few years, but the next bunch will be on a whole other level.
Millie Bobby Brown
Like her Stranger Things co-star, Millie Bobby Brown also caught her big break when she was cast as Eleven on the Netflix show. Despite the incredible talent of the ensemble cast of young actors, Millie Bobby Brown immediately stood out.
Her performance on the show also led to new work on the big screen, just as it did for Finn Wolfhard. Her first major motion picture was Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, and Charles Dance. Brown has also starred in Enola Holmes, which is all about the younger sister of one Sherlock Holmes.
Ansel Elgort
With a small role in Carrie in 2013, Ansel Elgort really became a star when he played Augustus Waters in the film adaptation of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars. He also co-starred in a popular novel franchise adaptation, the Divergent series. Elgort received his first Golden Globe nomination for his role in the film Baby Driver in 2017.
Suffice it to say the last decade was quite a busy and successful one for Elgort. Going into 2020, he has been cast in the lead role in Spielberg's new adaptation of West Side Story.
Shailene Woodley
Shailene Woodley starred alongside Elgort in both The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent. However, Woodley entered the spotlight a few years ahead of her co-star as the lead in the ABC Family series The Secret Life of the American Teenager and, even more so, as the daughter of George Clooney in Alexander Payne's 2011 drama, The Descendants.
She followed all of that up with a starring role in the HBO hit series Big Little Lies alongside the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep. Woodley could take the next decade off if she wanted, but why would she?
Hailee Steinfeld
It's hard to hold your own alongside stars like Jeff Bridges, especially when you're barely a teenager and your resume is almost nonexistent, but in 2010's True Grit, Hailee Steinfeld did just that, and the rest seems to be history.
In the last decade, Steinfeld has also appeared in Ender's Game with Harrison Ford, the Pitch Perfect series alongside Anna Kendrick, and as the lead in the newest Transformers film, Bumblebee. With the release of Apple TV +, Steinfeld also stars in her own series, Dickinson.
Zendaya
Zendaya showed almost more growth than any other young actress in the second decade of the new millennium, making the jump from Disney Channel and reality TV star to bona fide box office A-lister. Her career began on the Disney program Shake it Up, but by 2017, she was in two of the biggest films of the year starring in both Spider-Man: Homecoming as well as The Greatest Showman (where she got to show off her singing chops to go along with her record deal of a few years earlier).
In 2019, she starred in a second Spider-Man film and the first season of the HBO drama Euphoria as the main character Rue. With the show's third season on the way, Zendaya is just getting started.
Tom Holland
Tom Holland found his way into hearts the world over as the new Spider-Man alongside Zendaya's Mary Jane. Holland got his first big break a little earlier in the 2010s as he starred alongside Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor in 2012's The Impossible, about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
He made his first appearance as Spider-Man in 2016 in Captain America: Civil War before going on to star in two Avengers films and his own two Spider-Man standalone films. He will be using his voice-acting talents in the upcoming Dolittle and Pixar's Onward. Onward and upward, it seems.
Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Chalamet's first major onscreen role was in 2012, in the series Homeland. He came to prominence in 2017 as the star of Call Me By Your Name, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for best actor. He also appeared in Lady Bird with Saoirse Ronan and in 2018's Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell.
Chalamet ended the 2010s portraying Laurie in Greta Gerwig's Little Women. There's nothing little about his talents, and we bet there will be a lot more Chalamet to see over the next ten years.