2018–present: Mainstream breakthrough
In 2018, she played the lead role of Starr Carter in the contemporary drama The Hate U Give, based on the novel of the same name, which is about the Black Lives Matter movement. The film was received positively, and Stenberg received critical acclaim for her performance. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: "It is impossible to over-praise Stenberg's incandescent performance, a gathering storm that grows in ferocity and feeling with each scene." The film's director, George Tillman Jr., said that "She has this ability to make you feel like you're seeing the real deal, which comes from a level of dedication to the material that's rare at any age." She earned several accolades for the role, which include winning an African-American Film Critics Association Award, an NAACP Image Award, and being nominated for a Critics' Choice Award and a Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award. In late 2018, Stenberg starred in Amma Asante's World War II drama Where Hands Touch.
In 2019, Stenberg portrayed Elizabeth Eckford, a 15-year-old girl who in 1957 was among a group of nine Black students who were initially prevented from entering a racially segregated high school in Little Rock, Arkansas during a segment on the television show Drunk History (2019). In May 2019, she joined the cast of the Netflix miniseries The Eddy, which was released on May 8, 2020. That same month, she signed on to star in the remake of the 1996 thriller film Fear.
In August 2020, she was cast as Alana Beck in Stephen Chbosky's film adaptation of the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. She also collaborated with the show's composers, Pasek and Paul, on "The Anonymous Ones", a new song written specifically for her character, whose role was expanded upon from the stage version.
In 2021, Stenberg was cast in the main role for the Star Wars series The Acolyte. She later shared via Instagram Stories that the cancellation of the show was "not a huge shock to [her]" due to the "hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language" it received from Star Wars fans.
In 2022, Stenberg was part of the ensemble cast of the comedy horror film Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). Bodies Bodies Bodies premiered at South by Southwest on March 14, 2022. It was theatrically released by A24 on August 5, 2022, in select cities, before a nationwide expansion on August 12.
In May 2023, Stenberg was announced as part of the voice cast of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as Margo Kess / Spider-Byte. Stenberg also starred opposite Bobbi Salvör Menuez in the queer horror film My Animal, which had its world premiere at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in January.
