Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14797
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ann Magnuson works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ann Magnuson appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ann. Panic Room is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Fincher, Joe Dante, Barbet Schroeder and others, Ann Magnuson 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.
Panic Room (2002) as Lydia Lynch · Clear and Present Danger (1994) as Moira Wolfson · Small Soldiers (1998) as Irene Abernathy
Career snapshot
Ranked #14797 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1988–2003
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Panic Room
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.8
Panic Room
Most frequent director
David Fincher
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David Fincher
Most common genre
Crime
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
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
2000s
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The United States of Leland, Panic Room — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Tequila Sunrise.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.32 films | 6.72 films |
| Action | — | 6.33 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.11 film | 6.71 film | 6.91 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.02 films | — |
| Crime | 6.11 film | 5.91 film | 6.72 films |
| Romance | 6.11 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1988Tequila Sunrise
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shaleen McKussic.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2002Panic Room
6.9 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
2003The United States of Leland
The current state of the argument, as Karen Pollard.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Lydia Lynch
Directed by David Fincher
as Irene Abernathy
Directed by Joe Dante
as Moira Wolfson
Directed by Phillip Noyce
as Terry Taverner
Directed by Barbet Schroeder
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
Lydia Lynch
Panic Room (2002)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lydia Lynch gives Ann Magnuson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Irene Abernathy
Small Soldiers (1998)
Performance score6.6
Small Soldiers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Irene Abernathy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Moira Wolfson
Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Performance score6.6
Clear and Present Danger asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Moira Wolfson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Karen Pollard
The United States of Leland (2003)
Performance score6.5
The United States of Leland asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Karen Pollard 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 Lydia Lynch
Start here. Panic Room is the clearest statement of what Ann Magnuson does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 6.9 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.
Clear and Present Danger (1994)
Keeps the drama register of Panic Room but asks for a colder reading of it.
Before and After (1996)
Keeps the drama register of Clear and Present Danger but asks for a colder reading of it.
Small Soldiers (1998)
A deliberate change of key after Before and After — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The United States of Leland (2003)
A deliberate change of key after Small Soldiers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Towne
Director
1 film together
Notably Tequila Sunrise
Phillip Noyce
Director
1 film together
Notably Clear and Present Danger
Rachel Talalay
Director
1 film together
Notably Tank Girl
Barbet Schroeder
Director
1 film together
Notably Before and After
Joe Dante
Director
1 film together
Notably Small Soldiers
David Fincher
Director
1 film together
Notably Panic Room
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Fincher
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Panic RoomPhillip Noyce
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Clear and Present DangerJoe Dante
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Small SoldiersRobert Towne
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tequila SunriseBarbet Schroeder
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Before and AfterRachel Talalay
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tank GirlSix 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
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tequila Sunrise
as Shaleen McKussic
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Tank Girl
as The Madam
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
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 Magnuson 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Crime Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tequila Sunrise
as Shaleen McKussic
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Before and After
as Terry Taverner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Small Soldiers
as Irene Abernathy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Small Soldiers
as Irene Abernathy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Panic Room
as Lydia Lynch
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Morgan Freeman
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Zach Grenier
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Richmond Arquette
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Bob Stephenson
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Have your say
Community
Which Ann Magnuson 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
