Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1176
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Gugu Mbatha-Raw 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.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Gugu. Beauty and the Beast is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 documentary, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Mackenzie, F. Gary Gray, Brenda Chapman and others, Gugu Mbatha-Raw 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.
Beauty and the Beast (2017) as Plumette · Concussion (2015) as Prema Mutiso · Summerland (2020) as Vera
Career snapshot
Ranked #1176 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2011–2026
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Beauty and the Beast
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Summerland
Most frequent director
David Mackenzie
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David Mackenzie
Most common genre
Drama
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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. Motherless Brooklyn, Fast Color, A Wrinkle in Time — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 14 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. Motherless Brooklyn, Fast Color, A Wrinkle in Time.
Most productive era
2010s
14 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 | 6.78 films | 6.83 films |
| Action | 6.32 films | 6.72 films |
| Thriller | 6.64 films | 6.72 films |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 6.52 films |
| Crime | — | 6.63 films |
| Romance | 6.73 films | 7.01 film |
| Horror | 5.91 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2011Larry Crowne
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Talia.
Career peak
2013Belle
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Fuze
The current state of the argument, as Zuzana.
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 Dido Elizabeth Belle
Directed by Amma Asante
as Abbie
Directed by Stephanie Laing
as Zuzana
Directed by David Mackenzie
as Rachel
Directed by Gary Ross
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
Dido Elizabeth Belle
Belle (2013)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dido Elizabeth Belle gives Gugu Mbatha-Raw a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Vera
Summerland (2020)
Performance score7.4
Summerland asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Vera is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Abbie
Irreplaceable You (2018)
Performance score7.4
Irreplaceable You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Abbie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Zuzana
Fuze (2026)
Performance score7.3
Fuze asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Zuzana 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 Dido Elizabeth Belle
Start here. Belle is the clearest statement of what Gugu Mbatha-Raw does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Gugu 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.
Free State of Jones (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Belle but asks for a colder reading of it.
Irreplaceable You (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Free State of Jones but asks for a colder reading of it.
Summerland (2020)
Keeps the romance register of Irreplaceable You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fuze (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Summerland but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tom Hanks
Director
1 film together
Notably Larry Crowne
Amma Asante
Director
1 film together
Notably Belle
Stephen Sommers
Director
1 film together
Notably Odd Thomas
Lilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together
Notably Jupiter Ascending
Peter Landesman
Director
1 film together
Notably Concussion
Gary Ross
Director
1 film together
Notably Free State of Jones
Courtney Hunt
Director
1 film together
Notably The Whole Truth
Bill Condon
Director
1 film together
Notably Beauty and the Beast
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Director
1 film together
Notably Farming
Stephanie Laing
Director
1 film together
Notably Irreplaceable You
Julius Onah
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cloverfield Paradox
Ava DuVernay
Director
1 film together
Notably A Wrinkle in Time
Edward Norton
Director
1 film together
Notably Motherless Brooklyn
Philippa Lowthorpe
Director
1 film together
Notably Misbehaviour
Brenda Chapman
Director
1 film together
Notably Come Away
F. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together
Notably Lift
David Mackenzie
Director
1 film together
Notably Fuze
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bill Condon
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beauty and the BeastPeter Landesman
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ConcussionDavid Mackenzie
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FuzeStephen Sommers
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Odd ThomasAmma Asante
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BelleStephanie Laing
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Irreplaceable YouGary Ross
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Free State of JonesEdward Norton
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Motherless BrooklynCourtney Hunt
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Whole TruthF. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LiftPhilippa Lowthorpe
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MisbehaviourAdewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FarmingTom Hanks
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Larry CrowneBrenda Chapman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Come AwayJulius Onah
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 Cloverfield ParadoxLilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jupiter AscendingAva DuVernay
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Wrinkle in TimeSix 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
Beauty and the Beast
as Plumette
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Beauty and the Beast
as Plumette
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Beauty and the Beast
as Plumette
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Come Away
as Alice Littleton (Adult)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Belle
as Dido Elizabeth Belle
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. Gugu Mbatha-Raw 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
11 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
Odd Thomas
as Viola Peabody
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Fuze
as Zuzana
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Summerland
as Vera
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Odd Thomas
as Viola Peabody
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Fuze
as Zuzana
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Lift
as Abby Gladwell
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Misbehaviour
as Jennifer Hosten - Miss Grenada
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Wrinkle in Time
as Dr. Kate Murry
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: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
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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