Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1321
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kevin Rankin 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.
Kevin Rankin appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kevin. Dallas Buyers Club 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 documentary, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Vince Gilligan, David Mackenzie, Matt Reeves and others, Kevin Rankin 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.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013) as T.J. · Hell or High Water (2016) as Billy Rayburn · Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) as McVeigh
Career snapshot
Ranked #1321 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1997–2019
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Dallas Buyers Club
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Dallas Buyers Club
Most frequent director
Jean-Marc Vallée
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jean-Marc Vallée
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.6
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Road to El Camino: Behind the Scenes of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Skyscraper — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
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. The Apostle.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | — | 7.26 films |
| Action | — | 5.61 film | 6.54 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.84 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.81 film |
| Crime | — | — | 7.22 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997The Apostle
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Young Man in Car.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
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
2019El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
The current state of the argument, as Kenny.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Billy Rayburn
Directed by David Mackenzie
as McVeigh
Directed by Matt Reeves
as Kenny
Directed by Vince Gilligan
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
T.J.
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. T.J. gives Kevin Rankin a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Billy Rayburn
Hell or High Water (2016)
Performance score7.4
Hell or High Water asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Billy Rayburn is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
McVeigh
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Performance score7.2
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. McVeigh is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Greg
Wild (2014)
Performance score7.1
Wild asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Greg 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 T.J.
Start here. Dallas Buyers Club is the clearest statement of what Kevin Rankin does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kevin 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.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Dallas Buyers Club but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wild (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hell or High Water (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Wild but asks for a colder reading of it.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)
Keeps the crime register of Hell or High Water but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jean-Marc Vallée
Director
2 films together
Notably Dallas Buyers Club
Robert Duvall
Director
1 film together
Notably The Apostle
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Hulk
Wayne Kramer
Director
1 film together
Notably Pawn Shop Chronicles
Roland Emmerich
Director
1 film together
Notably White House Down
Matt Reeves
Director
1 film together
Notably Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
David Mackenzie
Director
1 film together
Notably Hell or High Water
Vince Gilligan
Director
1 film together
Notably El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jean-Marc Vallée
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Dallas Buyers ClubDavid Mackenzie
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hell or High WaterMatt Reeves
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dawn of the Planet of the ApesVince Gilligan
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
El Camino: A Breaking Bad MovieRoland Emmerich
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
White House DownRobert Duvall
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ApostleWayne Kramer
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pawn Shop ChroniclesAng Lee
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HulkSix 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
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
as McVeigh
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
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. Kevin Rankin 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
7 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
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
as McVeigh
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
as Kenny
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
as McVeigh
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Skyscraper
as Ray
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Hell or High Water
as Billy Rayburn
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Dallas Buyers Club
as T.J.
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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