Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9179
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Emory Cohen 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.
Emory Cohen appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Emory. Blue Bayou is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 drama, thriller, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Josh Safdie, Derek Cianfrance, Jeremy Saulnier and others, Emory Cohen 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.
Blue Bayou (2021) as Denny · Marty Supreme (2025) as Ira Mizler · Roofman (2025) as Otis
Career snapshot
Ranked #9179 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
2008–2025
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Blue Bayou
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Blue Bayou
Most frequent director
Derek Cianfrance
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Derek Cianfrance
Most common genre
Drama
14 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
2010s
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Sweetheart, Killerman, The Wolf Hour — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
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. New York, I Love You.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.01 film | 6.56 films | 6.47 films |
| Action | — | 6.21 film | 5.82 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.35 films | 6.34 films |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | — | 6.02 films |
| Crime | — | 6.74 films | 6.15 films |
| Romance | 6.01 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.62 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Prom Date (segment Brett Ratner) (uncredited).
Career peak
2018Lords of Chaos
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2021Blue Bayou
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2025Roofman
The current state of the argument, as Otis.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Ira Mizler
Directed by Josh Safdie
as Kristian 'Varg' Vikernes
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund
as Officer Steve Lann
Directed by Jeremy Saulnier
as Howie
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
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
Ira Mizler
Marty Supreme (2025)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ira Mizler gives Emory Cohen a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Denny
Blue Bayou (2021)
Performance score7.2
Blue Bayou asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Denny is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kristian 'Varg' Vikernes
Lords of Chaos (2018)
Performance score7.2
Lords of Chaos asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kristian 'Varg' Vikernes is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Officer Steve Lann
Rebel Ridge (2024)
Performance score7.1
Rebel Ridge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Officer Steve Lann 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 Ira Mizler
Start here. Marty Supreme is the clearest statement of what Emory Cohen does — accessible, 150 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Emory 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.
Shot Caller (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Marty Supreme but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lords of Chaos (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Shot Caller but asks for a colder reading of it.
Blue Bayou (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Lords of Chaos but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rebel Ridge (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Blue Bayou but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Derek Cianfrance
Director
2 films together
Notably Roofman
Fatih Akin
Director
1 film together
Notably New York, I Love You
Rupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gambler
Kieran Darcy-Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably The Duel
Ric Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together
Notably Shot Caller
Jonas Åkerlund
Director
1 film together
Notably Lords of Chaos
J.D. Dillard
Director
1 film together
Notably Sweetheart
Justin Chon
Director
1 film together
Notably Blue Bayou
Jeremy Saulnier
Director
1 film together
Notably Rebel Ridge
Josh Safdie
Director
1 film together
Notably Marty Supreme
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Derek Cianfrance
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
RoofmanJustin Chon
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blue BayouJosh Safdie
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marty SupremeJeremy Saulnier
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rebel RidgeRic Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shot CallerJonas Åkerlund
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lords of ChaosJ.D. Dillard
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SweetheartRupert Wyatt
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GamblerFatih Akin
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New York, I Love YouKieran Darcy-Smith
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DuelSix 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
Blue Bayou
as Denny
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
New York, I Love You
as Prom Date (segment Brett Ratner) (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blue Bayou
as Denny
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
New York, I Love You
as Prom Date (segment Brett Ratner) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Marty Supreme
as Ira Mizler
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. Emory Cohen 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
14 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Blue Bayou
as Denny
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Rebel Ridge
as Officer Steve Lann
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
New York, I Love You
as Prom Date (segment Brett Ratner) (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Flashback
as Sebastian
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Rebel Ridge
as Officer Steve Lann
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Killerman
as Skunk
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Roofman
as Otis
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Duel
as Isaac
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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