Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#611
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Cobie Smulders 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.
Cobie Smulders appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cobie. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 comedy, thriller, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Brad Baruh, Kieran Mulcare, Jon Watts and others, Cobie Smulders 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.
Avengers: Endgame (2019) as Maria Hill · Avengers: Infinity War (2018) as Maria Hill (uncredited) · The Avengers (2012) as Agent Maria Hill
Career snapshot
Ranked #611 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2004–2025
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Avengers: Endgame
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Avengers: Endgame
Most frequent director
Anthony Russo
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Anthony Russo
Most common genre
Action
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.8
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Spider-Man: Far From Home, Avengers: Endgame, Celebrating Marvel's Stan Lee — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 16 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. The Slammin' Salmon, Walking Tall.
Most productive era
2010s
16 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 | 6.31 film | 6.02 films | 5.81 film |
| Action | 6.31 film | 7.39 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 6.62 films | 5.81 film |
| Comedy | 5.81 film | 6.07 films | 5.81 film |
| Crime | — | 6.01 film | — |
| Romance | — | 7.21 film | 5.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004Walking Tall
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Exotic Beauty.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.5 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
2025Sharp Corner
The current state of the argument, as Rachel Davis-McCall.
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 Maria Hill
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Maria Hill (uncredited)
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Agent Maria Hill
Directed by Joss Whedon
as Jo
Directed by Lasse Hallström
as Maria Hill
Directed by Jon Watts
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
Maria Hill
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maria Hill gives Cobie Smulders a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Maria Hill (uncredited)
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Performance score8.2
Avengers: Infinity War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maria Hill (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Agent Maria Hill
The Avengers (2012)
Performance score8.0
The Avengers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Agent Maria Hill is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jo
Safe Haven (2013)
Performance score7.6
Safe Haven asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jo 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 Maria Hill
Start here. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest statement of what Cobie Smulders does — accessible, 181 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cobie 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.
The Avengers (2012)
Keeps the action register of Avengers: Endgame but asks for a colder reading of it.
Safe Haven (2013)
A deliberate change of key after The Avengers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Safe Haven — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)
Keeps the action register of Avengers: Infinity War but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Anthony Russo
Director
3 films together
Notably Avengers: Endgame
Joss Whedon
Director
2 films together
Notably The Avengers
Kevin Bray
Director
1 film together
Notably Walking Tall
Kevin Heffernan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Slammin' Salmon
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together
Notably Safe Haven
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably They Came Together
Phil Lord
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lego Movie
Clea DuVall
Director
1 film together
Notably The Intervention
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Jack Reacher: Never Go Back
Taran Killam
Director
1 film together
Notably Killing Gunther
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
Jon Watts
Director
1 film together
Notably Spider-Man: Far From Home
Kieran Mulcare
Director
1 film together
Notably Cicada
Brad Baruh
Director
1 film together
Notably Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Secret Invasion
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Anthony Russo
Director
3 films together · 8.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Avengers: EndgameJoss Whedon
Director
2 films together · 7.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The AvengersJon Watts
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spider-Man: Far From HomePhil Lord
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Lego MovieLasse Hallström
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Safe HavenMike Mitchell
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 Lego Movie 2: The Second PartKevin Bray
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Walking TallEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jack Reacher: Never Go BackClea 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 InterventionKieran Mulcare
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CicadaKevin Heffernan
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 Slammin' SalmonDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
They Came TogetherBrad Baruh
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Secret InvasionTaran Killam
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Killing GuntherSix 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
Avengers: Infinity War
as Maria Hill (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
Cicada
as Sophie
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Avengers: Infinity War
as Maria Hill (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Avengers: Infinity War
as Maria Hill (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Maria Hill
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. Cobie Smulders 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
21 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in action, 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
Avengers: Endgame
as Maria Hill
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Avengers: Infinity War
as Maria Hill (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Cicada
as Sophie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Celebrating Marvel's Stan Lee
as Self
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Avengers: Endgame
as Maria Hill
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Avengers: Endgame
as Maria Hill
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Lego Movie
as Wonder Woman (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Spider-Man: Far From Home
as Maria Hill
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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