Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3720
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Alia Shawkat represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Alia is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Alia Shawkat appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Alia. 20th Century Women is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Hailey Benton Gates, Zoë Kravitz, Jeff Tremaine and others, Alia Shawkat helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
20th Century Women (2016) as Trish · Ruby Sparks (2012) as Mabel · First Cow (2020) as Woman with Dog
Career snapshot
Ranked #3720 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1999–2026
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
20th Century Women
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
20th Century Women
Most frequent director
Hailey Benton Gates
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Hailey Benton Gates
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.8
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.3
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1990s
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Three Kings — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Three Kings.
Most productive era
2010s
12 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.71 film | 6.47 films | 6.53 films |
| Action | 6.71 film | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.02 films | 6.71 film |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | 6.28 films | 4.94 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.13 films | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.41 film | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Three Kings
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Amir's Daughter.
Career peak
2012Ruby Sparks
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026The Wrong Girls
The current state of the argument, as Molly.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
21 of 21 films
as Mabel
Directed by Jonathan Dayton
as Jess
Directed by Zoë Kravitz
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Trish
20th Century Women (2016)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Trish gives Alia Shawkat a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mabel
Ruby Sparks (2012)
Performance score7.2
Ruby Sparks asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mabel is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jess
Blink Twice (2024)
Performance score7.1
Blink Twice asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jess is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Rosita
The Letter Room (2020)
Performance score7.1
The Letter Room asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rosita is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Trish
Start here. 20th Century Women is the clearest statement of what Alia Shawkat does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Alia at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
Whip It (2009)
Keeps the drama register of 20th Century Women but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ruby Sparks (2012)
Keeps the drama register of Whip It but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Letter Room (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Ruby Sparks but asks for a colder reading of it.
Blink Twice (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Letter Room — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David O. Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably Three Kings
Drew Barrymore
Director
1 film together
Notably Whip It
Floria Sigismondi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Runaways
Miguel Arteta
Director
1 film together
Notably Cedar Rapids
Whit Stillman
Director
1 film together
Notably Damsels in Distress
Ramaa Mosley
Director
1 film together
Notably The Brass Teapot
Jonathan Dayton
Director
1 film together
Notably Ruby Sparks
Maggie Carey
Director
1 film together
Notably The To Do List
Todd Strauss-Schulson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Final Girls
Clea DuVall
Director
1 film together
Notably The Intervention
Joey Soloway
Director
1 film together
Notably Transparent: Musicale Finale
Aaron Sorkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Being the Ricardos
Jeff Tremaine
Director
1 film together
Notably Jackass Forever
Zoë Kravitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Blink Twice
Hailey Benton Gates
Director
1 film together
Notably Atropia
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jonathan Dayton
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ruby SparksJeff Tremaine
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jackass ForeverZoë Kravitz
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blink TwiceJoey Soloway
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Transparent: Musicale FinaleDrew Barrymore
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Whip ItDavid O. Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Three KingsAaron Sorkin
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Being the RicardosFloria Sigismondi
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The RunawaysTodd Strauss-Schulson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Final GirlsRamaa Mosley
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Brass TeapotHailey Benton Gates
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AtropiaMiguel Arteta
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cedar RapidsClea DuVall
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The InterventionMaggie Carey
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The To Do ListWhit Stillman
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Damsels in DistressSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
20th Century Women
as Trish
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Ruby Sparks
as Mabel
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
20th Century Women
as Trish
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Jackass Forever
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
20th Century Women
as Trish
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Alia Shawkat has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
27 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in comedy, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
Blink Twice
as Jess
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Blink Twice
as Jess
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ruby Sparks
as Mabel
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Blink Twice
as Jess
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Jackass Forever
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Jackass Forever
as Self
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Ruby Sparks
as Mabel
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Three Kings
as Amir's Daughter
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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