Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1416
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kyle Gallner represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Kyle is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kyle Gallner appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kyle. Dinner in America is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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, romance, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with JT Mollner, Parker Finn, Amy Redford and others, Kyle Gallner 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.
Dinner in America (2020) as Simon · American Sniper (2014) as Goat-Winston · Strange Darling (2024) as The Demon
Career snapshot
Ranked #1416 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
2001–2027
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Dinner in America
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Dinner in America
Most frequent director
JT Mollner
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With JT Mollner
Most common genre
Horror
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
6.4
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
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Cleansing Hour, Just Before I Go, Dear White People — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
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. Jennifer's Body, Red Eye, Wet Hot American Summer.
Most productive era
2020s
13 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 | — | 6.23 films | 6.43 films |
| Action | — | 7.41 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | 5.51 film | 6.28 films |
| Comedy | 6.12 films | 6.32 films | 7.71 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.71 film |
| Romance | — | 6.22 films | 7.22 films |
| Horror | 6.01 film | 5.92 films | 5.68 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Bobby's Buddy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.7 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
2027Skeletons
The current state of the argument.
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 Goat-Winston
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as The Demon
Directed by JT Mollner
as Oliver Anderson
Directed by Unknown
as Benson
Directed by Unknown
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
Simon
Dinner in America (2020)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Simon gives Kyle Gallner a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Goat-Winston
American Sniper (2014)
Performance score7.7
American Sniper asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Goat-Winston is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
The Demon
Strange Darling (2024)
Performance score7.3
Strange Darling asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Demon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Oliver Anderson
Carolina Caroline (2026)
Performance score7.1
Carolina Caroline asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Oliver Anderson 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 Simon
Start here. Dinner in America is the clearest statement of what Kyle Gallner does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kyle 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.
American Sniper (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Dinner in America — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Passenger (2023)
A deliberate change of key after American Sniper — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Strange Darling (2024)
Keeps the horror register of The Passenger but asks for a colder reading of it.
Carolina Caroline (2026)
Keeps the thriller register of Strange Darling but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Parker Finn
Director
2 films together
Notably Smile
JT Mollner
Director
2 films together
Notably Strange Darling
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably Wet Hot American Summer
Wes Craven
Director
1 film together
Notably Red Eye
Karyn Kusama
Director
1 film together
Notably Jennifer's Body
Richard LaGravenese
Director
1 film together
Notably Beautiful Creatures
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably American Sniper
Justin Simien
Director
1 film together
Notably Dear White People
Courteney Cox
Director
1 film together
Notably Just Before I Go
Eric Bress
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghosts of War
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
Director
1 film together
Notably Scream
Amy Redford
Director
1 film together
Notably What Comes Around
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Parker Finn
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
SmileJT Mollner
Director
2 films together · 3.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Strange DarlingClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American SniperMatt Bettinelli-Olpin
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ScreamCourteney Cox
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Just Before I GoWes Craven
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red EyeEric Bress
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ghosts of WarDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wet Hot American SummerJustin Simien
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dear White PeopleRichard LaGravenese
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beautiful CreaturesKaryn Kusama
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jennifer's BodyAmy Redford
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What Comes AroundSix 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
Dinner in America
as Simon
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Carolina Caroline
as Oliver Anderson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dinner in America
as Simon
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Wet Hot American Summer
as Bobby's Buddy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dinner in America
as Simon
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. Kyle Gallner 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
26 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.
Horror Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in horror, 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
Dinner in America
as Simon
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Strange Darling
as The Demon
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Beautiful Creatures
as Larkin Ravenwood
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Smile 2
as Joel
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
American Sniper
as Goat-Winston
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
American Sniper
as Goat-Winston
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Just Before I Go
as Zeke Morgan
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mother, May I?
as Emmett
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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