Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7669
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jon Heder 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.
Jon Heder appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jon. Just Like Heaven is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 fantasy, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jared Hess, Don Michael Paul, Henry Yu and others, Jon Heder 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.
Just Like Heaven (2005) as Darryl · Thelma the Unicorn (2024) as Reggie (voice) · Plan B (2024) as Evan Ebert
Career snapshot
Ranked #7669 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2005–2024
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Just Like Heaven
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Just Like Heaven
Most frequent director
Jared Hess
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jared Hess
Most common genre
Comedy
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
2000s
6.3 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Blades of Glory, Monster House, School for Scoundrels — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.3
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. Blades of Glory, Monster House, School for Scoundrels.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | — | 5.41 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.34 films | 5.83 films | 6.63 films |
| Romance | 6.32 films | 5.72 films | 6.81 film |
| Horror | — | — | 6.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
2005Just Like Heaven
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Darryl. 7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak · Most recent film
2024Plan B
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once. The current state of the argument, as Evan Ebert.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Darryl
Directed by Mark Waters
as Reggie (voice)
Directed by Jared Hess
as Jimmy
Directed by Don Michael Paul
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
Evan Ebert
Plan B (2024)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Evan Ebert gives Jon Heder a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Darryl
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Performance score7.1
Just Like Heaven asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Darryl is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Reggie (voice)
Thelma the Unicorn (2024)
Performance score6.8
Thelma the Unicorn asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Reggie (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp (2020)
Performance score6.7
Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self 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 Evan Ebert
Start here. Plan B is the clearest statement of what Jon Heder does — accessible, 90 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jon 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.
Just Like Heaven (2005)
Keeps the romance register of Plan B but asks for a colder reading of it.
Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Just Like Heaven but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp but asks for a colder reading of it.
Thelma the Unicorn (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Tremors: Shrieker Island — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mark Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Just Like Heaven
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably School for Scoundrels
Josh Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Blades of Glory
Mark Steven Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably When in Rome
Kat Coiro
Director
1 film together
Notably L!fe Happens
Henry Yu
Director
1 film together
Notably Surf's Up 2: WaveMania
Don Michael Paul
Director
1 film together
Notably Tremors: Shrieker Island
Jared Hess
Director
1 film together
Notably Thelma the Unicorn
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mark Waters
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Just Like HeavenJared Hess
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thelma the UnicornDon Michael Paul
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tremors: Shrieker IslandJosh Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blades of GloryHenry Yu
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Surf's Up 2: WaveManiaMark Steven Johnson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When in RomeTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
School for ScoundrelsKat Coiro
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
L!fe HappensSix 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
Time Warp Vol. 3: Comedy and Camp
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Thelma the Unicorn
as Reggie (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Just Like Heaven
as Darryl
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
L!fe Happens
as Wrong Number Caller
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Plan B
as Evan Ebert
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. Jon Heder 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Thelma the Unicorn
as Reggie (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Just Like Heaven
as Darryl
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Thelma the Unicorn
as Reggie (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Thelma the Unicorn
as Reggie (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Just Like Heaven
as Darryl
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Thelma the Unicorn
as Reggie (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Just Like Heaven
as Darryl
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Surf's Up 2: WaveMania
as Chicken Joe (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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