Patel played Zuko in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender", a feature film adaptation of the animated series "", which was released on 1 July 2010 to extremely negative reviews. Despite being a commercial success, the film was a critical failure (particularly for the casting of white actors as the protagonists, while the villains were played by actors who were South Asian and Arabs) and Patel even received a Razzie Award nomination as Worst Supporting Actor that year, although his role was well received, and was considered by many to be one of the film's positive aspects.