Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#504
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kelly Reilly 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.
Kelly Reilly appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kelly. Pride & Prejudice is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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 drama, mystery, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Zemeckis, Kenneth Branagh, Ciarán Foy and others, Kelly Reilly 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.
Pride & Prejudice (2005) as Caroline Bingley · Sherlock Holmes (2009) as Mary Morstan · Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) as Mary Morstan
Career snapshot
Ranked #504 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
2002–2024
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Pride & Prejudice
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Pride & Prejudice
Most frequent director
Robert Zemeckis
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Robert Zemeckis
Most common genre
Drama
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
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
2000s
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Sherlock Holmes, Triage, Eden Lake — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
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. Sherlock Holmes, Triage, Eden Lake.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 | 6.77 films | 6.65 films | 6.23 films |
| Action | 7.41 film | 6.82 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.42 films | 5.52 films | 6.62 films |
| Comedy | 6.74 films | 6.61 film | — |
| Crime | — | 5.71 film | 6.61 film |
| Romance | 6.94 films | 6.61 film | — |
| Horror | 6.81 film | 6.01 film | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Wendy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.2 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
2024Here
The current state of the argument, as Rose.
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.
22 of 22 films
as Jenny
Directed by James Watkins
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
Caroline Bingley
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Caroline Bingley gives Kelly Reilly a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Fiona Lavelle
Calvary (2014)
Performance score7.5
Calvary asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fiona Lavelle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jenny
Eden Lake (2008)
Performance score7.4
Eden Lake asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jenny is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nicole
Flight (2012)
Performance score7.3
Flight asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nicole 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 Caroline Bingley
Start here. Pride & Prejudice is the clearest statement of what Kelly Reilly does — accessible, 128 minutes, and rated 8.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kelly 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.
Eden Lake (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Pride & Prejudice — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Flight (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Eden Lake — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Calvary (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Flight but asks for a colder reading of it.
Heaven Is for Real (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Calvary but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Guy Ritchie
Director
2 films together
Notably Sherlock Holmes
James Watkins
Director
2 films together
Notably Eden Lake
Robert Zemeckis
Director
2 films together
Notably Flight
Stephen Frears
Director
1 film together
Notably Mrs. Henderson Presents
Joe Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Pride & Prejudice
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably Me and Orson Welles
Randall Wallace
Director
1 film together
Notably Heaven Is for Real
Ciarán Foy
Director
1 film together
Notably Eli
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably A Haunting in Venice
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Guy Ritchie
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Sherlock HolmesRobert Zemeckis
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
FlightJames Watkins
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Eden LakeJoe Wright
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pride & PrejudiceRandall Wallace
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heaven Is for RealStephen Frears
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mrs. Henderson PresentsKenneth Branagh
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 Haunting in VeniceRichard Linklater
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Me and Orson WellesCiarán Foy
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EliSix 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
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
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. Kelly Reilly 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
22 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
15 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
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sherlock Holmes
as Mary Morstan
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Pride & Prejudice
as Caroline Bingley
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Haunting in Venice
as Rowena Drake
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Sherlock Holmes
as Mary Morstan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
as Mary Morstan
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Me and Orson Welles
as Muriel Brassler
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Sherlock Holmes
as Mary Morstan
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
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Reference
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