Appearances

Title	Role	Year	Approx. Age
Elvis	Jimmie Rodgers	2022	26
Young Ones	Jerome Holm	2014	18
A Birder's Guide to Everything	David Portney	2013	17
Dead Europe	Josef	2012	16
Let Me In	Owen	2010	14
Matching Jack	Finn	2010	14
The Road	Boy	2009	13
Romulus, My Father	Rai	2007	11

Kodi Smit-McPhee was born on born 13 June 1996 in Adelaide, South Australia, the son of Sonja Smit and Andy McPhee. His father is an actor and former professional wrestler. His older sister is actress and singer Sianoa Smit-McPhee.

At age 16, Smit-McPhee was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative form of arthritis that causes vertebrae in the spine to fuse and can lead to chronic pain and loss of vision. Due to the condition, he is blind in his left eye.

Smit-McPhee's first feature film role was in Romulus, My Father, which garnered him the 2007 AFI Award for Best Young Actor as well as a Best Actor nomination. For his appearance in The Road (2009), he received a Critics' Choice Award nomination for Best Young Actor and a 2010 Australian Film Institute (AFI) nomination for Best International Actor. The following year, he starred in Let Me In, for which he received a 2010 Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Young Actor for his performance in the film.

Smit-McPhee then voiced the lead role of Norman in ParaNorman, a 2012 animated comedy horror film which was nominated for Best Animated Feature for the 2013 Academy Awards, and also received a 2013 BAFTA Award nomination for Best Animated Film. Later the same year, Smit-McPhee had a role in Dead Europe, which premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival. His next role came in All The Wilderness of James in the title role of James. He also starred in A Birder's Guide to Everything, which premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, and played Benvolio in a film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He co-starred in the 20th Century Fox film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).

In 2013, Smit-McPhee filmed the action science fiction film Young Ones. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2014. Soon afterwards he appeared in Slow West, which was released in 2015.

In March 2014, he was cast in the Nine Network's seven-part drama series Gallipoli which was broadcast in February and March 2015, the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landing. He plays 17-year-old Thomas "Tolly" Johnson, who pretends to be older so that he can enlist with his brother Bevan and ends up fighting at Gallipoli in the campaign that helped create the Anzac legend. Aged 17 when he undertook the role, Smit-McPhee said afterwards that it showed "that soldiers aren't the patriotic brave souls they look like, it's showing them at their most vulnerable in tragic times and when they are terrified".

Smit-McPhee played Nightcrawler in X-Men: Apocalypse (2016), a character whose older version was previously played by Alan Cumming. Smit-McPhee reprised the role in Dark Phoenix, which was released in 2019. In 2018, he played the central character Keda, an Ice Age adolescent who tames a wolf, in Alpha.

In 2021, Smit-McPhee starred in Jane Campion's film The Power of the Dog. The film premiered at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where it opened to critical acclaim. Smit-McPhee's performance, in particular, received praise, with Carlos Aguilar of TheWrap calling him "terrifyingly remarkable" and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian writing, "Smit-McPhee brings something inscrutably complex and reserved to his character's behavior". In March 2022, Smit-McPhee joined Alfonso Cuaron's upcoming Apple+ series Disclaimer.