Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jim Ortlieb appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jim. Magnolia is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, science fiction, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Christopher Guest, Paul Thomas Anderson, Andrew Davis and others, Jim Ortlieb 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.
Magnolia (1999) as Middle-Aged Guy · Home Alone (1990) as Herb the Drugstore Clerk · Contagion (2011) as Funeral Director
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Jim Ortlieb.
Films in Nutevio
8
1990–2026
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Magnolia
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Magnolia
Most frequent director
Christopher Guest
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Christopher Guest
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
6.5
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
1990s
7.0 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Magnolia, Chain Reaction, Home Alone — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.0
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Magnolia, Chain Reaction, Home Alone.
Most productive era
1990s
4 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.22 films | 6.71 film | 6.81 film | 0.01 film |
| Action | 6.11 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.11 film | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Comedy | 7.51 film | 6.72 films | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Horror | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1990Home Alone
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Herb the Drugstore Clerk.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1999Magnolia
7.7 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
2026Make Sense
The current state of the argument, as Panhandler.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Middle-Aged Guy
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
as Herb the Drugstore Clerk
Directed by Chris Columbus
as Brother Farron Davis
Directed by Unknown
as David Kantor
Directed by Christopher Guest
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
Middle-Aged Guy
Magnolia (1999)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Middle-Aged Guy gives Jim Ortlieb a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Herb the Drugstore Clerk
Home Alone (1990)
Performance score7.3
Home Alone asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Herb the Drugstore Clerk is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Funeral Director
Contagion (2011)
Performance score6.7
Contagion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Funeral Director is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Brother Farron Davis
Latter Days (2004)
Performance score6.6
Latter Days asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Brother Farron Davis 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 Middle-Aged Guy
Start here. Magnolia is the clearest statement of what Jim Ortlieb does — accessible, 189 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jim 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.
Home Alone (1990)
A deliberate change of key after Magnolia — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Mighty Wind (2003)
Keeps the comedy register of Home Alone but asks for a colder reading of it.
Latter Days (2004)
Keeps the comedy register of A Mighty Wind but asks for a colder reading of it.
Contagion (2011)
Same director as Latter Days, 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.
Joel Schumacher
Director
1 film together
Notably Flatliners
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably Home Alone
Andrew Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably Chain Reaction
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Magnolia
Christopher Guest
Director
1 film together
Notably A Mighty Wind
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MagnoliaChris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Home AloneChristopher Guest
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Mighty WindJoel Schumacher
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FlatlinersAndrew Davis
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chain ReactionSix 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
Home Alone
as Herb the Drugstore Clerk
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Latter Days
as Brother Farron Davis
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Magnolia
as Middle-Aged Guy
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Chain Reaction
as Orbit
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Magnolia
as Middle-Aged Guy
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. Jim Ortlieb 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
36 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
Magnolia
as Middle-Aged Guy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Magnolia
as Middle-Aged Guy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Latter Days
as Brother Farron Davis
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Contagion
as Funeral Director
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Magnolia
as Middle-Aged Guy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Chain Reaction
as Orbit
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Latter Days
as Brother Farron Davis
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Chain Reaction
as Orbit
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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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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