Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12286
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Lindsay Ayliffe works on quiet performance 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.
Lindsay Ayliffe appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lindsay. Just Mercy 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 quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, mystery, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nick Hamm, Michael Chaves, Michael Showalter and others, Lindsay Ayliffe 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.
Just Mercy (2019) as Judge Foster · Gigi & Nate (2022) as Dr. Falerias · The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) as Judge
Career snapshot
Ranked #12286 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2014–2022
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Just Mercy
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Just Mercy
Most frequent director
Nick Hamm
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Nick Hamm
Most common genre
Drama
5 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
6.8
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
2020s
7.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Gigi & Nate, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Eyes of Tammy Faye — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.1
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.1
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. Just Mercy, Trial by Fire, Shock and Awe.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | 7.03 films | 7.02 films |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 7.31 film |
| Comedy | 5.61 film | — |
| Crime | 7.32 films | — |
| Horror | — | 7.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Professor Garabedian.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Just Mercy
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
2022Gigi & Nate
The current state of the argument, as Dr. Falerias.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Judge Foster
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
as Judge
Directed by Michael Chaves
as Grigson
Directed by Edward Zwick
as Old Teacher (Bible College)
Directed by Michael Showalter
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
Judge Foster
Just Mercy (2019)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Judge Foster gives Lindsay Ayliffe a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Falerias
Gigi & Nate (2022)
Performance score7.4
Gigi & Nate asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Falerias is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Judge
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
Performance score7.2
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judge is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Grigson
Trial by Fire (2019)
Performance score6.9
Trial by Fire asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Grigson 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 Judge Foster
Start here. Just Mercy is the clearest statement of what Lindsay Ayliffe does — accessible, 137 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lindsay 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.
Trial by Fire (2019)
Keeps the crime register of Just Mercy but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Trial by Fire — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Gigi & Nate (2022)
Keeps the drama register of The Eyes of Tammy Faye but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Dumb and Dumber To
Rob Reiner
Director
1 film together
Notably Shock and Awe
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Trial by Fire
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together
Notably Just Mercy
Michael Showalter
Director
1 film together
Notably The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Michael Chaves
Director
1 film together
Notably The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Nick Hamm
Director
1 film together
Notably Gigi & Nate
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Just MercyNick Hamm
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gigi & NateMichael Chaves
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do ItEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Trial by FireMichael Showalter
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Eyes of Tammy FayeRob Reiner
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shock and AweBobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dumb and Dumber ToSix 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
Just Mercy
as Judge Foster
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Shock and Awe
as Mr. Mayr
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Just Mercy
as Judge Foster
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Shock and Awe
as Mr. Mayr
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Just Mercy
as Judge Foster
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. Lindsay Ayliffe 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
5 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
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
as Judge
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
as Judge
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Shock and Awe
as Mr. Mayr
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
as Judge
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Just Mercy
as Judge Foster
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Just Mercy
as Judge Foster
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Just Mercy
as Judge Foster
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
as Old Teacher (Bible College)
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
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Reference
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