Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#53955
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Mike Hodge represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Mike is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mike Hodge appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mike. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar 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 thriller, romance, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Max Mayer, Darnell Martin, Chris Rock and others, Mike Hodge 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.
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) as Jimmy Joe · Cadillac Records (2008) as Bartender · Adam (2009) as Judge
Career snapshot
Ranked #53955 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1990–2019
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Most frequent director
Max Mayer
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Max Mayer
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.5
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
1990s
6.5 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Mirror Has Two Faces, Ransom, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.5
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Mirror Has Two Faces, Ransom, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.
Most productive era
1990s
5 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.12 films | 6.53 films | — |
| Action | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.13 films | — | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | 7.12 films | 5.61 film | — |
| Crime | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.81 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1990Blue Steel
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Police Commissioner.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1995To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
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
2019Low Tide
The current state of the argument, as Don.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Bartender
Directed by Darnell Martin
as Justice of the Peace
Directed by Barbra Streisand
as Man at Party
Directed by Ron Howard
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
Jimmy Joe
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jimmy Joe gives Mike Hodge a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bartender
Cadillac Records (2008)
Performance score7.0
Cadillac Records asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bartender is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Judge
Adam (2009)
Performance score6.7
Adam asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judge is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Justice of the Peace
The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
Performance score6.6
The Mirror Has Two Faces asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Justice of the Peace 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 Jimmy Joe
Start here. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is the clearest statement of what Mike Hodge does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.5 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.
The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)
Keeps the comedy register of To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ransom (1996)
A deliberate change of key after The Mirror Has Two Faces — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cadillac Records (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Ransom — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Adam (2009)
Keeps the drama register of Cadillac Records but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kathryn Bigelow
Director
1 film together
Notably Blue Steel
Rowdy Herrington
Director
1 film together
Notably Striking Distance
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Ransom
Barbra Streisand
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mirror Has Two Faces
Chris Rock
Director
1 film together
Notably Head of State
Darnell Martin
Director
1 film together
Notably Cadillac Records
Max Mayer
Director
1 film together
Notably Adam
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Darnell Martin
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cadillac RecordsMax Mayer
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AdamBarbra Streisand
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 Mirror Has Two FacesRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RansomRowdy Herrington
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Striking DistanceKathryn Bigelow
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blue SteelChris Rock
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Head of StateSix 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
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
as Jimmy Joe
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Cadillac Records
as Bartender
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
as Jimmy Joe
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Head of State
as 2nd Fundraiser Issue Man
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
as Jimmy Joe
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 Hodge 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
29 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
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
as Jimmy Joe
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ransom
as Man at Party
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Adam
as Judge
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Striking Distance
as Captain Penderman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ransom
as Man at Party
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Striking Distance
as Captain Penderman
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Mirror Has Two Faces
as Justice of the Peace
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Low Tide
as Don
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
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Reference
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