Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6845
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mary Stuart Masterson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Mary is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mary Stuart Masterson appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mary. Something the Lord Made 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 drama, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rod Lurie, Joseph Sargent, Kevin Costner and others, Mary Stuart Masterson 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.
Something the Lord Made (2004) as Dr. Helen Taussig · Five Nights at Freddy's (2023) as Aunt Jane · Benny & Joon (1993) as Juniper 'Joon' Pearl
Career snapshot
Ranked #6845 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1986–2025
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Something the Lord Made
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Something the Lord Made
Most frequent director
Rod Lurie
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Rod Lurie
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.8
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
2000s
7.4 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Something the Lord Made — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
8.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Chances Are, At Close Range.
Most productive era
1990s
3 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 7.01 film | 7.41 film | 6.91 film | 6.71 film |
| Action | — | 6.31 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | — | — | — | 7.31 film |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 7.01 film | — | — | — |
| Crime | 6.81 film | — | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | 5.81 film | — | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 6.11 film | 7.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1986At Close Range
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Terry.
Career peak
1993Benny & Joon
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2025The Senior
The current state of the argument, as Eileen Flynt.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Juniper 'Joon' Pearl
Directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik
as Dr. Helen Taussig
Directed by Joseph Sargent
as Terry
Directed by James Foley
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
Aunt Jane
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Aunt Jane gives Mary Stuart Masterson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Juniper 'Joon' Pearl
Benny & Joon (1993)
Performance score7.4
Benny & Joon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Juniper 'Joon' Pearl is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dr. Helen Taussig
Something the Lord Made (2004)
Performance score7.2
Something the Lord Made asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Helen Taussig is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Terry
At Close Range (1986)
Performance score7.2
At Close Range asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Terry 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 Aunt Jane
Start here. Five Nights at Freddy's is the clearest statement of what Mary Stuart Masterson does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mary 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.
At Close Range (1986)
Keeps the thriller register of Five Nights at Freddy's but asks for a colder reading of it.
Benny & Joon (1993)
Keeps the drama register of At Close Range but asks for a colder reading of it.
Something the Lord Made (2004)
Keeps the drama register of Benny & Joon but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Senior (2025)
Keeps the drama register of Something the Lord Made but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
James Foley
Director
1 film together
Notably At Close Range
Emile Ardolino
Director
1 film together
Notably Chances Are
Jeremiah S. Chechik
Director
1 film together
Notably Benny & Joon
Jonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Girls
Kevin Costner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Postman
Joseph Sargent
Director
1 film together
Notably Something the Lord Made
Rod Lurie
Director
1 film together
Notably The Senior
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joseph Sargent
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Something the Lord MadeJeremiah S. Chechik
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Benny & JoonJames Foley
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
At Close RangeRod Lurie
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SeniorEmile Ardolino
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chances AreKevin Costner
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PostmanJonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad GirlsSix 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
Something the Lord Made
as Dr. Helen Taussig
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Skin
as Agent Jackie Marks
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Something the Lord Made
as Dr. Helen Taussig
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Postman
as Hope (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Five Nights at Freddy's
as Aunt Jane
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. Mary Stuart Masterson 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
39 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
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
Something the Lord Made
as Dr. Helen Taussig
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Five Nights at Freddy's
as Aunt Jane
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Skin
as Agent Jackie Marks
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Daniel Isn't Real
as Claire
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Postman
as Hope (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Postman
as Hope (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Benny & Joon
as Juniper 'Joon' Pearl
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bad Girls
as Anita Crown
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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