Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ann Codee appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ann. The Roaring Twenties is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 war, action, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Edward Dmytryk, George Sidney, Byron Haskin and others, Ann Codee 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.
The Roaring Twenties (1939) as Saleswoman (uncredited) · An American in Paris (1951) as Therese (uncredited) · The War of the Worlds (1953) as Dr. Duprey (uncredited)
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Ann Codee.
Films in Nutevio
8
1938–1958
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
The Roaring Twenties
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Roaring Twenties
Most frequent director
Edward Dmytryk
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Edward Dmytryk
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.5
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
1930s
6.8 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. The Roaring Twenties, Jezebel — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Roaring Twenties, Jezebel.
Most productive era
1950s
4 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 | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 6.61 film | 6.61 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.72 films |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.61 film | 6.62 films |
| Crime | 7.01 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.61 film | 6.62 films |
| Horror | — | 5.91 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1938Jezebel
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Madame Poulard (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1958The Young Lions
The current state of the argument, as French Woman (uncredited).
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.
8 of 8 films
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
Directed by Raoul Walsh
as Therese (uncredited)
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
as French Woman (uncredited)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk
as Dr. Duprey (uncredited)
Directed by Byron Haskin
as Madame Sylvia (uncredited)
Directed by George Stevens
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
Saleswoman (uncredited)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Saleswoman (uncredited) gives Ann Codee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Therese (uncredited)
An American in Paris (1951)
Performance score6.7
An American in Paris asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Therese (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
French Woman (uncredited)
The Young Lions (1958)
Performance score6.6
The Young Lions asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. French Woman (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Duprey (uncredited)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
Performance score6.6
The War of the Worlds asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Duprey (uncredited) 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 Saleswoman (uncredited)
Start here. The Roaring Twenties is the clearest statement of what Ann Codee does — accessible, 104 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ann 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.
Woman of the Year (1942)
Keeps the drama register of The Roaring Twenties but asks for a colder reading of it.
An American in Paris (1951)
Keeps the romance register of Woman of the Year but asks for a colder reading of it.
The War of the Worlds (1953)
A deliberate change of key after An American in Paris — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Young Lions (1958)
Keeps the action register of The War of the Worlds but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
William Wyler
Director
1 film together
Notably Jezebel
Raoul Walsh
Director
1 film together
Notably The Roaring Twenties
George Stevens
Director
1 film together
Notably Woman of the Year
Leslie Goodwins
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mummy's Curse
Vincente Minnelli
Director
1 film together
Notably An American in Paris
Byron Haskin
Director
1 film together
Notably The War of the Worlds
George Sidney
Director
1 film together
Notably Kiss Me Kate
Edward Dmytryk
Director
1 film together
Notably The Young Lions
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Raoul Walsh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Roaring TwentiesVincente Minnelli
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
An American in ParisByron Haskin
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The War of the WorldsWilliam Wyler
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
JezebelEdward Dmytryk
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Young LionsGeorge Stevens
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Woman of the YearGeorge Sidney
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kiss Me KateLeslie Goodwins
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 Mummy's CurseSix 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
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Jezebel
as Madame Poulard (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
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. Ann Codee 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
20 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in drama, 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
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Jezebel
as Madame Poulard (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Roaring Twenties
as Saleswoman (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The War of the Worlds
as Dr. Duprey (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The War of the Worlds
as Dr. Duprey (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Woman of the Year
as Madame Sylvia (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Mummy's Curse
as Tante Berthe (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
Which Ann Codee performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
