Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4586
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mike Birbiglia 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.
Mike Birbiglia appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mike. A Man Called Otto is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, western, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Judd Apatow, Marc Forster, Seth Barrish and others, Mike Birbiglia 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.
A Man Called Otto (2022) as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent · The Fault in Our Stars (2014) as Patrick · Mike Birbiglia: The New One (2019) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #4586 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2010–2027
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
A Man Called Otto
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
A Man Called Otto
Most frequent director
Judd Apatow
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Judd Apatow
Most common genre
Comedy
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
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
2010s
6.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Mike Birbiglia: The New One, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Digging for Fire — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.2
Across 11 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. Mike Birbiglia: The New One, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, Digging for Fire.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 6.15 films | 7.81 film |
| Action | 5.71 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.110 films | 3.92 films |
| Romance | 6.53 films | 0.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Toby.
Career peak
2019Mike Birbiglia: The New One
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument.
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 Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
Directed by Marc Forster
as Blonde CMZ Reporter
Directed by Jorma Taccone
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
Self
Mike Birbiglia: The New One (2019)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Mike Birbiglia a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
A Man Called Otto (2022)
Performance score7.6
A Man Called Otto asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Patrick
The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
Performance score7.4
The Fault in Our Stars asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Patrick is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Al
Your Sister's Sister (2011)
Performance score6.7
Your Sister's Sister asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Al 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 Self
Start here. Mike Birbiglia: The New One is the clearest statement of what Mike Birbiglia does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mike 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.
Your Sister's Sister (2011)
Keeps the comedy register of Mike Birbiglia: The New One but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Fault in Our Stars (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Your Sister's Sister — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)
A deliberate change of key after The Fault in Our Stars — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Man Called Otto (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Judd Apatow
Director
2 films together
Notably Trainwreck
Nanette Burstein
Director
1 film together
Notably Going the Distance
Miguel Arteta
Director
1 film together
Notably Cedar Rapids
Lynn Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably Your Sister's Sister
Ross Katz
Director
1 film together
Notably Adult Beginners
Will Gluck
Director
1 film together
Notably Annie
Josh Boone
Director
1 film together
Notably The Fault in Our Stars
Anne Fletcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Hot Pursuit
Joe Swanberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Digging for Fire
Jorma Taccone
Director
1 film together
Notably Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Seth Barrish
Director
1 film together
Notably Mike Birbiglia: The New One
Marc Forster
Director
1 film together
Notably A Man Called Otto
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Judd Apatow
Director
2 films together · 2.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
TrainwreckMarc Forster
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Man Called OttoJosh Boone
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Fault in Our StarsSeth Barrish
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mike Birbiglia: The New OneJorma Taccone
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Popstar: Never Stop Never StoppingLynn Shelton
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Your Sister's SisterWill Gluck
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AnnieNanette Burstein
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Going the DistanceMiguel Arteta
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cedar RapidsAnne Fletcher
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hot PursuitRoss Katz
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Adult BeginnersJoe Swanberg
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Digging for FireSix 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
A Man Called Otto
as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
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 Fault in Our Stars
as Patrick
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
A Man Called Otto
as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
as Blonde CMZ Reporter
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mike Birbiglia: The New One
as Self
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. Mike Birbiglia 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.
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
A Man Called Otto
as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
A Man Called Otto
as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Fault in Our Stars
as Patrick
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Fault in Our Stars
as Patrick
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
A Man Called Otto
as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Hot Pursuit
as Steve (Running Date)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Going the Distance
as Toby
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Man Called Otto
as Dye & Merica Real Estate Agent
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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