Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9972
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Michael Ian Black represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Michael is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Michael Ian Black appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Michael. Superman is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 science fiction, comedy, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Wain, James Gunn, Christian Hoffman and others, Michael Ian Black 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.
Superman (2025) as Cleavis Thornwaite · Linoleum (2023) as Tony · Sextuplets (2019) as Doug
Career snapshot
Ranked #9972 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Superman
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Superman
Most frequent director
David Wain
5 films together
Longest collaboration
5×
With David Wain
Most common genre
Comedy
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
2010s
5.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Sextuplets, They Came Together, This Is 40 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
5.8
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.8
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. The Ten, Reno 911!: Miami, Wet Hot American Summer.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | — | 6.01 film | 5.92 films |
| Action | 5.81 film | — | 7.51 film |
| Comedy | 5.63 films | 5.85 films | 4.34 films |
| Crime | 5.81 film | — | 5.71 film |
| Romance | — | 5.82 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as McKinley.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2025Superman
7.5 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
2026Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
The current state of the argument, as Very Famous Star Maps Salesman.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Cleavis Thornwaite
Directed by James Gunn
as Self
Directed by Unknown
as Very Famous Star Maps Salesman
Directed by David Wain
as Bill Aucoin
Directed by Unknown
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
Cleavis Thornwaite
Superman (2025)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Cleavis Thornwaite gives Michael Ian Black a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Doug
Sextuplets (2019)
Performance score6.7
Sextuplets asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Doug is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Deepfaking Sam Altman (2026)
Performance score6.5
Deepfaking Sam Altman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Very Famous Star Maps Salesman
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (2026)
Performance score6.5
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Very Famous Star Maps Salesman 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 Cleavis Thornwaite
Start here. Superman is the clearest statement of what Michael Ian Black does — accessible, 130 minutes, and rated 7.5 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.
Sextuplets (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Superman — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Spinning Gold (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Sextuplets — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Deepfaking Sam Altman (2026)
Same director as Spinning Gold, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Deepfaking Sam Altman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Wain
Director
5 films together
Notably Wet Hot American Summer
Robert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together
Notably Reno 911!: Miami
Michael Dowse
Director
1 film together
Notably Take Me Home Tonight
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably This Is 40
Michael Tiddes
Director
1 film together
Notably Sextuplets
Christian Hoffman
Director
1 film together
Notably Reno 911!: It's a Wonderful Heist
James Gunn
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Wain
Director
5 films together · 5.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 5 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Wet Hot American SummerJames Gunn
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SupermanMichael Tiddes
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SextupletsMichael Dowse
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Take Me Home TonightJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
This Is 40Robert Ben Garant
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Reno 911!: MiamiChristian Hoffman
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Reno 911!: It's a Wonderful HeistSix 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
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Spinning Gold
as Bill Aucoin
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Ten
as Prison Guard Jamberg Saivon
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
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 Ian Black 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
25 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
12 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
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Spinning Gold
as Bill Aucoin
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Reno 911!: It's a Wonderful Heist
as Hatzolah Commander
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Take Me Home Tonight
as Pete Bering
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Superman
as Cleavis Thornwaite
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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