Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1440
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Lindsay Lohan represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 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 Lohan appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lindsay. Mean Girls is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 comedy, fantasy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nisha Ganatra, Stephen Herek, Sofia Coppola and others, Lindsay Lohan 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.
Mean Girls (2004) as Cady Heron · The Parent Trap (1998) as Hallie Parker / Annie James · The Holiday (2006) as Lindsay Lohan (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1440 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1998–2025
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Mean Girls
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Mean Girls
Most frequent director
Nancy Meyers
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Nancy Meyers
Most common genre
Comedy
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
1990s
7.3 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Parent Trap — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.2
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. The Parent Trap.
Most productive era
2000s
10 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 | — | 6.35 films | 5.41 film | 6.21 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.31 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 4.51 film | 5.02 films | — |
| Comedy | 7.31 film | 6.47 films | 6.31 film | 6.25 films |
| Crime | — | 5.41 film | 4.62 films | — |
| Romance | 7.31 film | 6.33 films | — | 6.23 films |
| Horror | — | 4.51 film | 3.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998The Parent Trap
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hallie Parker / Annie James.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2004Mean Girls
7.4 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
2025Freakier Friday
The current state of the argument, as Anna Coleman.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Cady Heron
Directed by Mark Waters
as Hallie Parker / Annie James
Directed by Nancy Meyers
as Anna Coleman
Directed by Nisha Ganatra
as Anna Coleman
Directed by Mark Waters
as Lindsay Lohan (uncredited)
Directed by Nancy Meyers
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
Cady Heron
Mean Girls (2004)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Cady Heron gives Lindsay Lohan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Hallie Parker / Annie James
The Parent Trap (1998)
Performance score7.9
The Parent Trap asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hallie Parker / Annie James is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Anna Coleman
Freakier Friday (2025)
Performance score7.4
Freakier Friday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anna Coleman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Anna Coleman
Freaky Friday (2003)
Performance score7.3
Freaky Friday asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anna Coleman 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 Cady Heron
Start here. Mean Girls is the clearest statement of what Lindsay Lohan does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 7.4 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.
The Parent Trap (1998)
Keeps the comedy register of Mean Girls but asks for a colder reading of it.
Freaky Friday (2003)
Keeps the comedy register of The Parent Trap but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Holiday (2006)
Keeps the comedy register of Freaky Friday but asks for a colder reading of it.
Freakier Friday (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of The Holiday but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mark Waters
Director
2 films together
Notably Mean Girls
Nancy Meyers
Director
2 films together
Notably The Parent Trap
Angela Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Herbie Fully Loaded
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably A Prairie Home Companion
Emilio Estevez
Director
1 film together
Notably Bobby
Garry Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Georgia Rule
Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together
Notably Machete
Sofia Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bling Ring
Stephen Herek
Director
1 film together
Notably Our Little Secret
Nisha Ganatra
Director
1 film together
Notably Freakier Friday
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Nancy Meyers
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Parent TrapMark Waters
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Mean GirlsNisha Ganatra
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freakier FridayEmilio Estevez
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BobbyRobert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MacheteRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Prairie Home CompanionStephen Herek
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Our Little SecretGarry Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Georgia RuleAngela Robinson
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Herbie Fully LoadedSofia Coppola
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bling RingSix 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
The Parent Trap
as Hallie Parker / Annie James
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Herbie Fully Loaded
as Maggie Peyton
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mean Girls
as Cady Heron
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Bling Ring
as Self(archive footage) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mean Girls
as Cady Heron
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 Lohan 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
27 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
14 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
Mean Girls
as Cady Heron
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Machete
as April Booth
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Herbie Fully Loaded
as Maggie Peyton
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
I Know Who Killed Me
as Aubrey Fleming
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mean Girls
as Cady Heron
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Machete
as April Booth
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Herbie Fully Loaded
as Maggie Peyton
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mean Girls
as Cady Heron
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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