Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2517
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Lindsay Duncan represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Lindsay is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lindsay Duncan appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lindsay. Gifted 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, horror, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Philippa Lowthorpe, Ruth Paxton, James D'Arcy and others, Lindsay Duncan 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.
Gifted (2017) as Evelyn Adler · About Time (2013) as Mum · Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) as Tabitha
Career snapshot
Ranked #2517 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1996–2025
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Gifted
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Gifted
Most frequent director
Philippa Lowthorpe
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Philippa Lowthorpe
Most common genre
Drama
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.6
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. Blackbird, Little Joe, My Zoe — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 8 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
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, An Ideal Husband, City Hall.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.32 films | 6.41 film | 7.16 films | 6.62 films |
| Action | 6.81 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.01 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.41 film | 7.72 films | 6.01 film |
| Romance | 6.51 film | 6.41 film | 8.01 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 4.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996City Hall
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sydney Pappas.
Highest rated performance
2013About Time
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2017Gifted
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025H Is for Hawk
The current state of the argument, as Mum.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Mum
Directed by Richard Curtis
as Mum
Directed by Philippa Lowthorpe
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
Evelyn Adler
Gifted (2017)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Evelyn Adler gives Lindsay Duncan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mum
About Time (2013)
Performance score7.8
About Time asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mum is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mum
H Is for Hawk (2025)
Performance score7.6
H Is for Hawk asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mum is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tabitha
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Performance score7.2
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tabitha 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 Evelyn Adler
Start here. Gifted is the clearest statement of what Lindsay Duncan does — accessible, 101 minutes, and rated 8.0 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.
About Time (2013)
Keeps the drama register of Gifted but asks for a colder reading of it.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
Keeps the drama register of About Time but asks for a colder reading of it.
Blackbird (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) but asks for a colder reading of it.
H Is for Hawk (2025)
Keeps the drama register of Blackbird but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Oliver Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably An Ideal Husband
George Lucas
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Tom Vaughan
Director
1 film together
Notably Starter for 10
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Alice in Wonderland
Richard Curtis
Director
1 film together
Notably About Time
Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together
Notably Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
James Bobin
Director
1 film together
Notably Alice Through the Looking Glass
Marc Webb
Director
1 film together
Notably Gifted
Julie Delpy
Director
1 film together
Notably My Zoe
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Blackbird
James D'Arcy
Director
1 film together
Notably Made in Italy
Ruth Paxton
Director
1 film together
Notably A Banquet
Philippa Lowthorpe
Director
1 film together
Notably H Is for Hawk
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Marc Webb
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GiftedRichard Curtis
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
About TimeAlejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)Philippa Lowthorpe
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
H Is for HawkRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BlackbirdGeorge Lucas
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom MenaceJames Bobin
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alice Through the Looking GlassTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alice in WonderlandJulie Delpy
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My ZoeOliver Parker
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
An Ideal HusbandTom Vaughan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Starter for 10James D'Arcy
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Made in ItalyRuth Paxton
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A BanquetSix 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
About Time
as Mum
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
About Time
as Mum
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
About Time
as Mum
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
as TC-14 (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Gifted
as Evelyn Adler
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 Duncan 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
29 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
11 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
About Time
as Mum
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gifted
as Evelyn Adler
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
About Time
as Mum
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Alice in Wonderland
as Helen Kingsleigh
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gifted
as Evelyn Adler
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
as TC-14 (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Gifted
as Evelyn Adler
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
as TC-14 (voice)
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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