Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4736
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kate Berlant 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.
Kate Berlant appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kate. Maddie's Secret is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 comedy, thriller, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Boots Riley, Eric Appel, John Early and others, Kate Berlant 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.
Maddie's Secret (2026) as Deena · Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) as Bruin Box Office Girl · The Breadwinner (2026) as Angela Ashford
Career snapshot
Ranked #4736 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2017–2027
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Maddie's Secret
Average Nutevio score
5.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Maddie's Secret
Most frequent director
Boots Riley
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Boots Riley
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Sorry to Bother You, Buster's Mal Heart — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, Sorry to Bother You, Buster's Mal Heart.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 6.82 films | — |
| Thriller | 7.61 film | 4.43 films |
| Comedy | 7.22 films | 4.29 films |
| Crime | — | 6.01 film |
| Romance | — | 0.01 film |
| Horror | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Phone Sex Operator (voice).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2026Maddie's Secret
8.0 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
2027Wishful Thinking
The current state of the argument, as Tilly.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Bruin Box Office Girl
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Diana DeBauchery
Directed by Boots Riley
as Angela Ashford
Directed by Eric Appel
as Peg
Directed by Olivia Wilde
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
Deena
Maddie's Secret (2026)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Deena gives Kate Berlant a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bruin Box Office Girl
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Performance score7.4
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bruin Box Office Girl is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Diana DeBauchery
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Performance score7.0
Sorry to Bother You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Diana DeBauchery is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Angela Ashford
The Breadwinner (2026)
Performance score6.8
The Breadwinner asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Angela Ashford 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 Deena
Start here. Maddie's Secret is the clearest statement of what Kate Berlant does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kate 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.
Sorry to Bother You (2018)
Keeps the comedy register of Maddie's Secret but asks for a colder reading of it.
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of Sorry to Bother You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Don't Worry Darling (2022)
Keeps the thriller register of Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Breadwinner (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Don't Worry Darling — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Boots Riley
Director
2 films together
Notably Sorry to Bother You
Sarah Adina Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Buster's Mal Heart
Quentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
Olivia Wilde
Director
1 film together
Notably Don't Worry Darling
Chelsea Peretti
Director
1 film together
Notably First Time Female Director
Kristoffer Borgli
Director
1 film together
Notably Dream Scenario
John Early
Director
1 film together
Notably Maddie's Secret
Eric Appel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Breadwinner
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Boots Riley
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Sorry to Bother YouJohn Early
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maddie's SecretQuentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Upon a Time... in HollywoodEric Appel
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BreadwinnerOlivia Wilde
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Don't Worry DarlingKristoffer Borgli
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dream ScenarioSarah Adina Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Buster's Mal HeartChelsea Peretti
Director
1 film together · 3.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
First Time Female DirectorSix 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
Maddie's Secret
as Deena
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Bruin Box Office Girl
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Maddie's Secret
as Deena
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Bruin Box Office Girl
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Maddie's Secret
as Deena
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. Kate Berlant 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
11 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
Maddie's Secret
as Deena
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Don't Worry Darling
as Peg
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Wishful Thinking
as Tilly
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Don't Worry Darling
as Peg
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Maddie's Secret
as Deena
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Maddie's Secret
as Deena
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Bruin Box Office Girl
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
as Bruin Box Office Girl
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — Quentin Tarantino
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Kate Berlant performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
