Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2166
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ella Purnell 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.
Ella Purnell appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ella. Maleficent is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 adventure, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ella Purnell, Zack Snyder, Jonathan Teplitzky and others, Ella Purnell 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.
Maleficent (2014) as Teen Maleficent · Toast (2023) as Narrator (voice) · UFO (2018) as Natalie
Career snapshot
Ranked #2166 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2010–2026
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Maleficent
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Maleficent
Most frequent director
Ella Purnell
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ella Purnell
Most common genre
Adventure
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 25m
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
6.2
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
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. UFO, Churchill, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. UFO, Churchill, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
Most productive era
2010s
9 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.01 film |
| Action | 6.53 films | 6.12 films |
| Thriller | 6.33 films | — |
| Crime | 6.41 film | 6.21 film |
| Romance | 7.02 films | — |
| Horror | 5.51 film | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010Never Let Me Go
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Young Ruth.
Highest rated performance
2014Maleficent
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2023Toast
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026ViQueens
The current state of the argument, as Ingrid (voice).
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.
14 of 14 films
as Young Ruth
Directed by Mark Romanek
as Teen Maleficent
Directed by Robert Stromberg
as Megan Turner
Directed by Ben Chanan
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
Narrator (voice)
Toast (2023)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Narrator (voice) gives Ella Purnell a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Natalie
UFO (2018)
Performance score7.3
UFO asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Natalie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Young Ruth
Never Let Me Go (2010)
Performance score7.1
Never Let Me Go asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Young Ruth is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Teen Maleficent
Maleficent (2014)
Performance score7.0
Maleficent asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Teen Maleficent 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 Narrator (voice)
Start here. Toast is the clearest statement of what Ella Purnell does — accessible, 5 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ella 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.
Never Let Me Go (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Toast — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Maleficent (2014)
Keeps the romance register of Never Let Me Go but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cyberbully (2015)
A deliberate change of key after Maleficent — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
UFO (2018)
Keeps the thriller register of Cyberbully but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mark Romanek
Director
1 film together
Notably Never Let Me Go
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Director
1 film together
Notably Intruders
Jeff Wadlow
Director
1 film together
Notably Kick-Ass 2
Robert Stromberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent
Ben Chanan
Director
1 film together
Notably Cyberbully
David Yates
Director
1 film together
Notably The Legend of Tarzan
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Jonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together
Notably Churchill
Zack Snyder
Director
1 film together
Notably Army of the Dead
Ella Purnell
Director
1 film together
Notably Junk Male
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Stromberg
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaleficentMark Romanek
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Never Let Me GoTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar ChildrenBen Chanan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CyberbullyJeff Wadlow
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kick-Ass 2Zack Snyder
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Army of the DeadJonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ChurchillElla Purnell
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Junk MaleDavid Yates
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 Legend of TarzanJuan Carlos Fresnadillo
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IntrudersSix 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
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
as Emma
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Maleficent
as Teen Maleficent
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Maleficent
as Teen Maleficent
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Maleficent
as Teen Maleficent
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Toast
as Narrator (voice)
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. Ella Purnell 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.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in adventure, 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
Toast
as Narrator (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
UFO
as Natalie
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Maleficent
as Teen Maleficent
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
UFO
as Natalie
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Maleficent
as Teen Maleficent
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kick-Ass 2
as Dolce
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Maleficent
as Teen Maleficent
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Never Let Me Go
as Young Ruth
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: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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