Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18520
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Michael Epp is the performer our scores keep defending against the popular vote — a career of films that get better the further you stand from their release week.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Michael Epp appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Michael. The Beekeeper is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 mystery, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Guy Ritchie, Kristen Stewart, Brady Corbet and others, Michael Epp 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 Beekeeper (2024) as Pettis · The Brutalist (2024) as Jim Simpson · The World Will Tremble (2025) as Lenz
Career snapshot
Ranked #18520 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2016–2025
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
The Beekeeper
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
The World Will Tremble
Most frequent director
Brady Corbet
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Brady Corbet
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.3
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
6.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Fountain of Youth, The World Will Tremble, The Chronology of Water — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.6
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.2
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. Overlord, Unlocked, The Childhood of a Leader.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | 6.21 film | 6.57 films |
| Action | 6.22 films | 6.92 films |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | 6.62 films |
| Comedy | — | 5.71 film |
| Crime | — | 7.31 film |
| Horror | 6.81 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Economist.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2024The Beekeeper
7.3 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
The current state of the argument, as Mike.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Pettis
Directed by David Ayer
as Jim Simpson
Directed by Brady Corbet
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
Pettis
The Beekeeper (2024)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pettis gives Michael Epp a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lenz
The World Will Tremble (2025)
Performance score7.1
The World Will Tremble asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lenz is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jim Simpson
The Brutalist (2024)
Performance score6.9
The Brutalist asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jim Simpson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mike
The Chronology of Water (2025)
Performance score6.8
The Chronology of Water asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mike 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 Pettis
Start here. The Beekeeper is the clearest statement of what Michael Epp does — accessible, 106 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Michael 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.
Complete (2022)
Keeps the thriller register of The Beekeeper but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Brutalist (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Complete but asks for a colder reading of it.
The World Will Tremble (2025)
Keeps the drama register of The Brutalist but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Chronology of Water (2025)
Keeps the drama register of The World Will Tremble but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brady Corbet
Director
2 films together
Notably The Brutalist
Eran Creevy
Director
1 film together
Notably Collide
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably Unlocked
Pablo Larraín
Director
1 film together
Notably Spencer
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Survivor
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably The Beekeeper
Kristen Stewart
Director
1 film together
Notably The Chronology of Water
Guy Ritchie
Director
1 film together
Notably Fountain of Youth
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brady Corbet
Director
2 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The BrutalistDavid Ayer
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 BeekeeperPablo Larraín
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpencerKristen Stewart
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Chronology of WaterBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SurvivorGuy Ritchie
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fountain of YouthMichael Apted
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnlockedEran Creevy
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CollideSix 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 Beekeeper
as Pettis
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 Brutalist
as Jim Simpson
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 Beekeeper
as Pettis
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Overlord
as German Soldier
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Beekeeper
as Pettis
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. Michael Epp 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
8 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
Fountain of Youth
as Praeger
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Beekeeper
as Pettis
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Brutalist
as Jim Simpson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fountain of Youth
as Praeger
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Beekeeper
as Pettis
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Survivor
as SS Kuttner
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The World Will Tremble
as Lenz
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
O My God
as Hagen Seibold
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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