Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7172
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kodi Smit-McPhee 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.
Kodi Smit-McPhee appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kodi. Memoir of a Snail is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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 thriller, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Adam Elliot, Pablo Larraín, Baz Luhrmann and others, Kodi Smit-McPhee 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.
Memoir of a Snail (2024) as Gilbert (voice) · Elvis (2022) as Jimmie Rodgers Snow · Deadpool 2 (2018) as Nightcrawler (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #7172 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
2009–2026
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Memoir of a Snail
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Memoir of a Snail
Most frequent director
David Leitch
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Leitch
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 56m
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
6.5
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
7.0 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Road — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.0
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. The Road.
Most productive era
2010s
12 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 | 7.01 film | 6.78 films | 7.14 films |
| Action | — | 6.76 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.02 films | 5.31 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.23 films | 7.61 film |
| Romance | — | 6.72 films | — |
| Horror | — | 6.81 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009The Road
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Boy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.6 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
2026The Passenger
The current state of the argument, as Lloyd.
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 Gilbert (voice)
Directed by Adam Elliot
as Alexander
Directed by Matt Reeves
as Owen
Directed by Matt Reeves
as Boy
Directed by John Hillcoat
as Jimmie Rodgers Snow
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
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
Gilbert (voice)
Memoir of a Snail (2024)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gilbert (voice) gives Kodi Smit-McPhee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Alexander
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Performance score7.4
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alexander is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Owen
Let Me In (2010)
Performance score7.4
Let Me In asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Owen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Boy
The Road (2009)
Performance score7.4
The Road asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Boy 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 Gilbert (voice)
Start here. Memoir of a Snail is the clearest statement of what Kodi Smit-McPhee does — accessible, 94 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kodi 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.
The Road (2009)
Keeps the drama register of Memoir of a Snail but asks for a colder reading of it.
Let Me In (2010)
Keeps the drama register of The Road but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
Same director as Let Me In, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Elvis (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Matt Reeves
Director
2 films together
Notably Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
David Leitch
Director
2 films together
Notably Deadpool 2
John Hillcoat
Director
1 film together
Notably The Road
Ari Folman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Congress
Jake Paltrow
Director
1 film together
Notably Young Ones
Bryan Singer
Director
1 film together
Notably X-Men: Apocalypse
Albert Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably Alpha
Craig Brewer
Director
1 film together
Notably Dolemite Is My Name
Simon Kinberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Phoenix
Jane Campion
Director
1 film together
Notably The Power of the Dog
Baz Luhrmann
Director
1 film together
Notably Elvis
Pablo Larraín
Director
1 film together
Notably Maria
Adam Elliot
Director
1 film together
Notably Memoir of a Snail
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Leitch
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
Deadpool 2Matt Reeves
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Dawn of the Planet of the ApesAdam Elliot
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Memoir of a SnailBaz Luhrmann
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ElvisCraig Brewer
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dolemite Is My NameJohn Hillcoat
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The RoadJane Campion
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 Power of the DogAlbert Hughes
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AlphaPablo Larraín
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MariaBryan Singer
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
X-Men: ApocalypseAri Folman
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CongressSimon Kinberg
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark PhoenixJake Paltrow
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Young OnesSix 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
Deadpool 2
as Nightcrawler (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Elvis
as Jimmie Rodgers Snow
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Memoir of a Snail
as Gilbert (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Deadpool 2
as Nightcrawler (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Memoir of a Snail
as Gilbert (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. Kodi Smit-McPhee 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
13 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
Let Me In
as Owen
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 Alexander
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Maria
as Mandrax
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Let Me In
as Owen
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Deadpool 2
as Nightcrawler (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Young Ones
as Jerome Holm
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Memoir of a Snail
as Gilbert (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Elvis
as Jimmie Rodgers Snow
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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