Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#26522
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Imani Lewis works on quiet performance 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.
Imani Lewis appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Imani. Eighth Grade 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 quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rashaad Ernesto Green, Radha Blank, Oz Rodríguez and others, Imani Lewis 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.
Eighth Grade (2018) as Aniyah · The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020) as Elaine · Premature (2020) as Shonté
Career snapshot
Ranked #26522 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2018–2025
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Eighth Grade
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Eighth Grade
Most frequent director
Rashaad Ernesto Green
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Rashaad Ernesto Green
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
6.1
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
7.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Eighth Grade — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.2
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. Eighth Grade.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.21 film | 4.84 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.51 film |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | 5.93 films |
| Romance | — | 6.31 film |
| Horror | — | 5.62 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Eighth Grade
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Aniyah. 7.2 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
2025Ricky
The current state of the argument, as Jaz.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Aniyah
Directed by Bo Burnham
as Ricki
Directed by Unknown
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
Aniyah
Eighth Grade (2018)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Aniyah gives Imani Lewis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Elaine
The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020)
Performance score6.9
The Forty-Year-Old Version asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Elaine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jaz
Ricky (2025)
Performance score6.5
Ricky asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jaz is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ricki
Killer Among Us (2021)
Performance score6.5
Killer Among Us asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ricki 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 Aniyah
Start here. Eighth Grade is the clearest statement of what Imani Lewis does — accessible, 94 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Imani 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 Forty-Year-Old Version (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Eighth Grade but asks for a colder reading of it.
Killer Among Us (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Forty-Year-Old Version — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Shoplifters of the World (2021)
Same director as Killer Among Us, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Ricky (2025)
Same director as Shoplifters of the World, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bo Burnham
Director
1 film together
Notably Eighth Grade
Oz Rodríguez
Director
1 film together
Notably Vampires vs. the Bronx
Radha Blank
Director
1 film together
Notably The Forty-Year-Old Version
Rashaad Ernesto Green
Director
1 film together
Notably Premature
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Bo Burnham
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eighth GradeRadha Blank
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 Forty-Year-Old VersionRashaad Ernesto Green
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PrematureOz Rodríguez
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Vampires vs. the BronxSix 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
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Premature
as Shonté
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Vampires vs. the Bronx
as Gloria
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
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. Imani Lewis 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
5 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
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Killer Among Us
as Ricki
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Premature
as Shonté
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Killer Among Us
as Ricki
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Forty-Year-Old Version
as Elaine
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Eighth Grade
as Aniyah
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Michael Caine
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Michael B. Jordan
Built a career in the same territory: horror and thriller
Hailee Steinfeld
Built a career in the same territory: horror and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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