Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9797
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Maxine Peake works on versatility 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.
Maxine Peake appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Maxine. The Theory of Everything is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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, history, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kirk Jones, Evie Ward-Drummond, James Strong and others, Maxine Peake 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.
The Theory of Everything (2014) as Elaine Mason · I Swear (2025) as Dottie · Dance First (2023) as Barbara
Career snapshot
Ranked #9797 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2009–2025
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
The Theory of Everything
Average Nutevio score
5.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
I Swear
Most frequent director
James Marsh
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With James Marsh
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 24m
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
6.2
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
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
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. Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 6.91 film | 6.43 films | 7.13 films |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | 5.72 films | 6.12 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 3.32 films |
| Crime | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | 7.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | 1.01 film | 6.02 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Helen Marshall.
Highest rated performance
7.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2025I Swear
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025Words of War
The current state of the argument, as Anna Politkovskaya.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Anna Politkovskaya
Directed by James Strong
as Helen Marshall
Directed by James Marsh
as Barbara
Directed by James Marsh
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
Dottie
I Swear (2025)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dottie gives Maxine Peake a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Elaine Mason
The Theory of Everything (2014)
Performance score7.7
The Theory of Everything asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Elaine Mason is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Anna Politkovskaya
Words of War (2025)
Performance score7.4
Words of War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anna Politkovskaya is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Helen Marshall
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009)
Performance score7.3
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Helen Marshall 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 Dottie
Start here. I Swear is the clearest statement of what Maxine Peake does — accessible, 121 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Maxine 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.
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009)
Keeps the drama register of I Swear but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Theory of Everything (2014)
Same director as Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Dance First (2023)
Same director as The Theory of Everything, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Words of War (2025)
Keeps the drama register of Dance First but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
James Marsh
Director
3 films together
Notably The Theory of Everything
Ruth Paxton
Director
1 film together
Notably Be Still My Beating Heart
Henry Selick
Director
1 film together
Notably Wendell & Wild
James Strong
Director
1 film together
Notably Words of War
Evie Ward-Drummond
Director
1 film together
Notably Laundreams
Kirk Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably I Swear
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
James Marsh
Director
3 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Theory of EverythingKirk Jones
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I SwearJames Strong
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Words of WarHenry Selick
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wendell & WildRuth Paxton
Director
1 film together · 1.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Evie Ward-Drummond
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LaundreamsSix 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 Theory of Everything
as Elaine Mason
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Theory of Everything
as Elaine Mason
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Theory of Everything
as Elaine Mason
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Wendell & Wild
as Irmgard Klaxon (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
I Swear
as Dottie
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. Maxine Peake 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
7 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 Theory of Everything
as Elaine Mason
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
as Helen Marshall
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
I Swear
as Dottie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1980
as Helen Marshall
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Theory of Everything
as Elaine Mason
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Wendell & Wild
as Irmgard Klaxon (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Wendell & Wild
as Irmgard Klaxon (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Theory of Everything
as Elaine Mason
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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