Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#21024
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Bobb'e J. Thompson 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.
Bobb'e J. Thompson appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Bobb'e. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 romance, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, Nick Cannon, Phil Lord and others, Bobb'e J. Thompson 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.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) as Derrick · School Dance (2014) as Jason Jackson · Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) as Cal Devereaux (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #21024 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2004–2026
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Most frequent director
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
6.4
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
2010s
7.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, School Dance — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.5
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. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Land of the Lost, Imagine That.
Most productive era
2000s
6 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 | 6.41 film | 7.52 films | — |
| Action | 6.03 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.25 films | 7.52 films | 5.51 film |
| Crime | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | 5.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Shark Tale
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shortie #1 (voice).
Career peak
2014School Dance
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2015Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Rome.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Jason Jackson
Directed by Nick Cannon
as Cal Devereaux (voice)
Directed by Phil Lord
as Ronnie Shields
Directed by David Wain
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Jason Jackson
School Dance (2014)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jason Jackson gives Bobb'e J. Thompson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Derrick
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
Performance score7.3
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Derrick is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Cal Devereaux (voice)
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Performance score6.7
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cal Devereaux (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ronnie Shields
Role Models (2008)
Performance score6.7
Role Models asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ronnie Shields 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 Jason Jackson
Start here. School Dance is the clearest statement of what Bobb'e J. Thompson does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Bobb'e 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.
Role Models (2008)
Keeps the comedy register of School Dance but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009)
Keeps the comedy register of Role Models but asks for a colder reading of it.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
Keeps the comedy register of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs but asks for a colder reading of it.
Funny Thing About Love (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David R. Ellis
Director
1 film together
Notably Cellular
Bibo Bergeron
Director
1 film together
Notably Shark Tale
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably Role Models
Karey Kirkpatrick
Director
1 film together
Notably Imagine That
Brad Silberling
Director
1 film together
Notably Land of the Lost
Phil Lord
Director
1 film together
Notably Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Nick Cannon
Director
1 film together
Notably School Dance
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Director
1 film together
Notably Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Me and Earl and the Dying GirlNick Cannon
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
School DancePhil Lord
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cloudy with a Chance of MeatballsDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Role ModelsDavid R. Ellis
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CellularBibo Bergeron
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shark TaleKarey Kirkpatrick
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Imagine ThatBrad Silberling
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Land of the LostSix 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
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
as Derrick
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
School Dance
as Jason Jackson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
as Derrick
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Cellular
as Lil Rapper
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
School Dance
as Jason Jackson
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. Bobb'e J. Thompson 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
22 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
8 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
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
as Derrick
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cellular
as Lil Rapper
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
School Dance
as Jason Jackson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Cellular
as Lil Rapper
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
as Derrick
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Land of the Lost
as Tar Pits Kid
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
School Dance
as Jason Jackson
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Shark Tale
as Shortie #1 (voice)
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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