Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1160
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kate Burton represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Kate is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kate Burton appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kate. Big Trouble in Little China 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 horror, drama, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Julia Max, Craig Gillespie, Andrew Fleming and others, Kate Burton 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.
Big Trouble in Little China (1986) as Margo · Remember Me (2010) as Janine · 127 Hours (2010) as Aron's Mom
Career snapshot
Ranked #1160 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1986–2025
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Big Trouble in Little China
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Big Trouble in Little China
Most frequent director
Julia Max
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Julia Max
Most common genre
Drama
16 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
6.9
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
6.7
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
1980s
7.2 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Big Trouble in Little China — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
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
1980s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Big Trouble in Little China.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.52 films | 6.04 films | 6.85 films | 6.35 films |
| Action | 7.21 film | — | 5.41 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.72 films | 7.11 film | 6.32 films |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | 6.32 films | 5.41 film | 6.62 films | 6.71 film |
| Crime | — | — | 5.41 film | — | 6.32 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.71 film | 6.83 films | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1986Big Trouble in Little China
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Margo. 7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2021The Codebreaker
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025Violent Ends
The current state of the argument, as Darlene Woodley.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Narrator (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Margo
Directed by John Carpenter
as Aron's Mom
Directed by Danny Boyle
as Janine
Directed by Allen Coulter
as Mrs. Wheeler
Directed by Andrew Fleming
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
Narrator (voice)
The Codebreaker (2021)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Narrator (voice) gives Kate Burton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Margo
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Performance score7.3
Big Trouble in Little China asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Margo is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Aron's Mom
127 Hours (2010)
Performance score7.2
127 Hours asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aron's Mom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Janine
Remember Me (2010)
Performance score7.0
Remember Me asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Janine 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 Narrator (voice)
Start here. The Codebreaker is the clearest statement of what Kate Burton does — accessible, 60 minutes, and rated 7.0 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.
Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
A deliberate change of key after The Codebreaker — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
127 Hours (2010)
Keeps the adventure register of Big Trouble in Little China but asks for a colder reading of it.
Remember Me (2010)
Keeps the drama register of 127 Hours but asks for a colder reading of it.
Barefoot (2014)
Keeps the romance register of Remember Me but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Carpenter
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Trouble in Little China
Hugh Wilson
Director
1 film together
Notably The First Wives Club
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ice Storm
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Celebrity
Adrian Lyne
Director
1 film together
Notably Unfaithful
Marc Forster
Director
1 film together
Notably Stay
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably What Just Happened
Danny Boyle
Director
1 film together
Notably 127 Hours
Allen Coulter
Director
1 film together
Notably Remember Me
Mark Kassen
Director
1 film together
Notably Puncture
Josh Radnor
Director
1 film together
Notably Liberal Arts
Andrew Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Barefoot
Craig Gillespie
Director
1 film together
Notably Dumb Money
Julia Max
Director
1 film together
Notably The Surrender
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Carpenter
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big Trouble in Little ChinaAllen Coulter
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Remember MeDanny Boyle
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
127 HoursAng Lee
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 Ice StormCraig Gillespie
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dumb MoneyAndrew Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BarefootMark Kassen
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PunctureAdrian Lyne
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnfaithfulHugh Wilson
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 First Wives ClubMarc Forster
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
StayJosh Radnor
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Liberal ArtsWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CelebrityJulia Max
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SurrenderBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What Just HappenedSix 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
Remember Me
as Janine
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Remember Me
as Janine
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Big Trouble in Little China
as Margo
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
What Just Happened
as Doctor Randall
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Codebreaker
as Narrator (voice)
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 Burton 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
39 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
16 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
Puncture
as Senator O'Reilly
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Stay
as Mrs. Letham
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Remember Me
as Janine
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Stay
as Mrs. Letham
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Big Trouble in Little China
as Margo
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Big Trouble in Little China
as Margo
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Dumb Money
as Elaine Gill
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Liberal Arts
as Susan
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
David Krumholtz
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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