Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#22378
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Billy Ray Cyrus represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Billy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Billy Ray Cyrus appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Billy. Mulholland Drive is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 music, documentary, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Sam Wrench, Brian Levant, Rich Correll and others, Billy Ray Cyrus 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.
Mulholland Drive (2001) as Gene · Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (2026) as Self · One World: Together at Home (2020) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #22378 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Mulholland Drive
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Mulholland Drive
Most frequent director
Sam Wrench
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Sam Wrench
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 36m
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
2000s
7.4 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana, Mulholland Drive — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.4
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana, Mulholland Drive.
Most productive era
2020s
3 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.81 film | — | 4.31 film |
| Action | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Thriller | 7.81 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | 5.91 film | 4.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Mulholland Drive
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Gene. 7.8 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
2026Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Gene
Directed by David Lynch
as Robby Stewart
Directed by Rich Correll
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
Gene
Mulholland Drive (2001)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gene gives Billy Ray Cyrus a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self
Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (2026)
Performance score7.3
Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
One World: Together at Home (2020)
Performance score7.0
One World: Together at Home asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Robby Stewart
Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana (2009)
Performance score6.9
Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robby Stewart 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 Gene
Start here. Mulholland Drive is the clearest statement of what Billy Ray Cyrus does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Billy 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.
Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Mulholland Drive — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
One World: Together at Home (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Christmas in Paradise (2022)
Same director as One World: Together at Home, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Christmas in Paradise — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Lynch
Director
1 film together
Notably Mulholland Drive
Rich Correll
Director
1 film together
Notably Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana
Brian Levant
Director
1 film together
Notably The Spy Next Door
Sam Wrench
Director
1 film together
Notably Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Lynch
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mulholland DriveSam Wrench
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary SpecialRich Correll
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wizards on Deck with Hannah MontanaBrian Levant
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 Spy Next DoorSix 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
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
One World: Together at Home
as Self
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
One World: Together at Home
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
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. Billy Ray Cyrus 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
25 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
3 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
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
One World: Together at Home
as Self
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mulholland Drive
as Gene
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Spy Next Door
as Colton James
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Christmas in Paradise
as Jimmy
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Christmas in Paradise
as Jimmy
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Jamie Harris
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Have your say
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Reference
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