Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18770
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Lily Franky 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.
Lily Franky appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lily. Town Without Sea 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 drama, romance, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ayuko Tsukahara, Michihito Fujii, Woo Min-ho and others, Lily Franky 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.
Town Without Sea (2020) as Sho's Grandfather · Every Trick In The Book (2021) as Maeda · Shoplifters (2018) as Osamu Shibata
Career snapshot
Ranked #18770 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2012–2026
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Town Without Sea
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Town Without Sea
Most frequent director
Michihito Fujii
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Michihito Fujii
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
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
6.4
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
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Shoplifters, The Boy and the Beast, Helter Skelter — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Shoplifters, The Boy and the Beast, Helter Skelter.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.33 films | 6.410 films |
| Action | 7.61 film | 7.12 films |
| Thriller | 7.61 film | 6.32 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.11 film |
| Crime | 7.61 film | 6.12 films |
| Romance | — | 7.22 films |
| Horror | 6.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2012Helter Skelter
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kenichi-san.
Career peak
2018Shoplifters
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2020Town Without Sea
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Fujiko
The current state of the argument, as Makoto Sasaoka.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Osamu Shibata
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
as Sho's Grandfather
Directed by Elaiza Ikeda
as Hyakushūbō (voice)
Directed by Mamoru Hosoda
as Michael
Directed by Michihito Fujii
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
Osamu Shibata
Shoplifters (2018)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Osamu Shibata gives Lily Franky a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sho's Grandfather
Town Without Sea (2020)
Performance score7.8
Town Without Sea asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sho's Grandfather is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hyakushūbō (voice)
The Boy and the Beast (2015)
Performance score7.7
The Boy and the Beast asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hyakushūbō (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Maeda
Every Trick In The Book (2021)
Performance score7.4
Every Trick In The Book asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maeda 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 Osamu Shibata
Start here. Shoplifters is the clearest statement of what Lily Franky does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lily 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 Boy and the Beast (2015)
Keeps the drama register of Shoplifters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Town Without Sea (2020)
Keeps the drama register of The Boy and the Beast but asks for a colder reading of it.
Every Trick In The Book (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Town Without Sea but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Parades (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Every Trick In The Book but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michihito Fujii
Director
2 films together
Notably The Parades
Mamoru Hosoda
Director
1 film together
Notably The Boy and the Beast
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together
Notably Shoplifters
Masaharu Take
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gun 2020
Takeshi Fukunaga
Director
1 film together
Notably Ainu Mosir
Elaiza Ikeda
Director
1 film together
Notably Town Without Sea
Rikiya Imaizumi
Director
1 film together
Notably Call Me Chihiro
Woo Min-ho
Director
1 film together
Notably Harbin
Ayuko Tsukahara
Director
1 film together
Notably 1st Kiss
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michihito Fujii
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
The ParadesElaiza Ikeda
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Town Without SeaHirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShopliftersMamoru Hosoda
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Boy and the BeastWoo Min-ho
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HarbinRikiya Imaizumi
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Call Me ChihiroTakeshi Fukunaga
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ainu MosirAyuko Tsukahara
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
1st KissMasaharu Take
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Gun 2020Six 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
Town Without Sea
as Sho's Grandfather
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Boy and the Beast
as Hyakushūbō (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Town Without Sea
as Sho's Grandfather
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bad City
as Wataru Gojo
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Shoplifters
as Osamu Shibata
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. Lily Franky 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
Every Trick In The Book
as Maeda
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shoplifters
as Osamu Shibata
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
1st Kiss
as Tenma Ichiro
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Every Trick In The Book
as Maeda
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Boy and the Beast
as Hyakushūbō (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Boy and the Beast
as Hyakushūbō (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Boy and the Beast
as Hyakushūbō (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bad City
as Wataru Gojo
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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