Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18125
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Nanako Matsushima represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Nanako is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Nanako Matsushima appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nanako. When Marnie Was There is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 tv movie, drama, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Yoshihiro Fukagawa, Takashi Miike, Yū Irie and others, Nanako Matsushima 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.
When Marnie Was There (2014) as Yoriko Sasaki (voice) · GTO Revival (2024) · AI Amok (2020) as Nozomi Kiryu
Career snapshot
Ranked #18125 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1998–2024
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
When Marnie Was There
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
When Marnie Was There
Most frequent director
Hideo Nakata
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Hideo Nakata
Most common genre
Horror
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
6.6
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
7.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. When Marnie Was There — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.9
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. Ring 2, Ring, The Spiral.
Most productive era
1990s
3 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.71 film | 7.61 film |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | — | — |
| Horror | 6.13 films | — | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Ring
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Reiko Asakawa.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.7 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
2024GTO Revival
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.
7 of 7 films
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
as Reiko Asakawa
Directed by Hideo Nakata
Directed by Yoshihiro Fukagawa
as Reika Watanabe
Directed by Takashi Miike
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
Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
When Marnie Was There (2014)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Yoriko Sasaki (voice) gives Nanako Matsushima a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Reiko Asakawa
Ring (1998)
Performance score7.6
Ring asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Reiko Asakawa is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
GTO Revival
GTO Revival (2024)
Performance score7.4
GTO Revival asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nozomi Kiryu
AI Amok (2020)
Performance score7.0
AI Amok asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nozomi Kiryu 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 Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
Start here. When Marnie Was There is the clearest statement of what Nanako Matsushima does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nanako 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.
Ring (1998)
A deliberate change of key after When Marnie Was There — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
AI Amok (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Ring — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Great Yokai War: Guardians (2021)
A deliberate change of key after AI Amok — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
GTO Revival (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Great Yokai War: Guardians — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Hideo Nakata
Director
2 films together
Notably Ring
Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Director
1 film together
Notably When Marnie Was There
Yū Irie
Director
1 film together
Notably AI Amok
Takashi Miike
Director
1 film together
Notably The Great Yokai War: Guardians
Yoshihiro Fukagawa
Director
1 film together
Notably GTO Revival
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hideo Nakata
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
RingHiromasa Yonebayashi
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When Marnie Was ThereYoshihiro Fukagawa
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GTO RevivalYū Irie
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AI AmokTakashi Miike
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Great Yokai War: GuardiansSix 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
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
GTO Revival
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
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. Nanako Matsushima 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
26 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.
Horror Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in horror, 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
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ring
as Reiko Asakawa
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Spiral
as Reiko Asakawa (archive footage) (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Great Yokai War: Guardians
as Reika Watanabe
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
When Marnie Was There
as Yoriko Sasaki (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
GTO Revival
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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