Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#563
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Linda Cardellini represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Linda is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Linda Cardellini appears in 23 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Linda. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 family, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with McG, Stephen Chbosky, David Gordon Green and others, Linda Cardellini 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.
Avengers: Endgame (2019) as Laura Barton · Green Book (2018) as Dolores · Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) as Lylla
Career snapshot
Ranked #563 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
23
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Avengers: Endgame
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Avengers: Endgame
Most frequent director
James Gunn
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With James Gunn
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.6
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Avengers: Endgame, Green Book, A Simple Favor — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 11 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
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Brokeback Mountain, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Scooby-Doo.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 7.81 film | 7.05 films | 3.63 films |
| Action | — | 7.25 films | 8.11 film |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | 6.83 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.33 films | 6.76 films | 6.32 films |
| Crime | — | 6.81 film | 5.01 film |
| Romance | 7.81 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2001Legally Blonde
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Chutney Windham.
Career peak
2018Green Book
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
8.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Sarah.
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.
23 of 23 films
as Dolores
Directed by Peter Farrelly
as Laura Barton
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Lylla
Directed by James Gunn
as Joan Smith
Directed by John Lee Hancock
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
Dolores
Green Book (2018)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dolores gives Linda Cardellini a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Laura Barton
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Performance score8.2
Avengers: Endgame asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Laura Barton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Lylla
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Performance score7.8
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lylla is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cassie Cartwright
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Performance score7.8
Brokeback Mountain asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cassie Cartwright 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 Dolores
Start here. Green Book is the clearest statement of what Linda Cardellini does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Linda 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.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Green Book but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Founder (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Brokeback Mountain but asks for a colder reading of it.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Founder — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Keeps the action register of Avengers: Endgame but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Raja Gosnell
Director
2 films together
Notably Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
James Gunn
Director
2 films together
Notably Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Tom McLoughlin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Unsaid
Robert Luketic
Director
1 film together
Notably Legally Blonde
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Brokeback Mountain
Jonathan Hensleigh
Director
1 film together
Notably Kill the Irishman
Shira Piven
Director
1 film together
Notably Welcome to Me
Joss Whedon
Director
1 film together
Notably Avengers: Age of Ultron
John Lee Hancock
Director
1 film together
Notably The Founder
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably A Simple Favor
Peter Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Green Book
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably Avengers: Endgame
Brad Baruh
Director
1 film together
Notably Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye
David Gordon Green
Director
1 film together
Notably Nutcrackers
Stephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together
Notably Nonnas
McG
Director
1 film together
Notably Way of the Warrior Kid
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
James Gunn
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
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3Raja Gosnell
Director
2 films together · 6.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters UnleashedAnthony Russo
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Avengers: EndgamePeter Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Green BookAng Lee
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brokeback MountainJoss Whedon
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Avengers: Age of UltronBrad Baruh
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of HawkeyeJohn Lee Hancock
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FounderStephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NonnasJonathan Hensleigh
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kill the IrishmanRobert Luketic
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Legally BlondePaul Feig
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 Simple FavorTom McLoughlin
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The UnsaidDavid Gordon Green
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NutcrackersShira Piven
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Welcome to MeMcG
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Way of the Warrior KidSix 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
Green Book
as Dolores
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Brokeback Mountain
as Cassie Cartwright
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Laura Barton
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Laura Barton
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Green Book
as Dolores
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. Linda Cardellini 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
25 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Avengers: Endgame
as Laura Barton
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Avengers: Endgame
as Laura Barton
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Founder
as Joan Smith
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
A Simple Favor
as Diana Hyland
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Avengers: Endgame
as Laura Barton
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Lylla
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Green Book
as Dolores
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Avengers: Endgame
as Laura Barton
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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