Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3903
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Naomi Ackie 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.
Naomi Ackie appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Naomi. The Skywalker Legacy 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, 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, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Boots Riley, Ric Roman Waugh, James Watkins and others, Naomi Ackie 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 Skywalker Legacy (2020) as Self · Shelter (2026) as Roberta · Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022) as Whitney Houston
Career snapshot
Ranked #3903 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2016–2026
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Skywalker Legacy
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
The Skywalker Legacy
Most frequent director
Boots Riley
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Boots Riley
Most common genre
Thriller
6 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
6.2
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
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Corrupted, Lady Macbeth — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
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. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Corrupted, Lady Macbeth.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 6.61 film | 6.54 films |
| Action | 6.31 film | 7.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.11 film | 5.35 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.54 films |
| Crime | 6.11 film | 6.83 films |
| Romance | — | 5.31 film |
| Horror | — | 3.42 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2016Lady Macbeth
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Anna.
Highest rated performance
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2026Shelter
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Clayface
The current state of the argument, as Caitlyn Corr.
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 Roberta
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
as Frida
Directed by Zoë Kravitz
as Nasha
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
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
Roberta
Shelter (2026)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Roberta gives Naomi Ackie a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Whitney Houston
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)
Performance score7.6
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Whitney Houston is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
The Skywalker Legacy (2020)
Performance score7.6
The Skywalker Legacy 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
Frida
Blink Twice (2024)
Performance score7.4
Blink Twice asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frida 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 Roberta
Start here. Shelter is the clearest statement of what Naomi Ackie does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Naomi 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 Skywalker Legacy (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Shelter — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)
A deliberate change of key after The Skywalker Legacy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Blink Twice (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Mickey 17 (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Blink Twice — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
William Oldroyd
Director
1 film together
Notably Lady Macbeth
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Debs Paterson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Skywalker Legacy
Kasi Lemmons
Director
1 film together
Notably Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Asif Kapadia
Director
1 film together
Notably 2073
Zoë Kravitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Blink Twice
Eva Victor
Director
1 film together
Notably Sorry, Baby
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thursday Murder Club
Bong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together
Notably Mickey 17
James Watkins
Director
1 film together
Notably Clayface
Ric Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together
Notably Shelter
Boots Riley
Director
1 film together
Notably I Love Boosters
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Debs Paterson
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Skywalker LegacyRic Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShelterKasi Lemmons
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with SomebodyBong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mickey 17Eva Victor
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sorry, BabyZoë Kravitz
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blink TwiceAsif Kapadia
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
2073Chris Columbus
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 Thursday Murder ClubWilliam Oldroyd
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lady MacbethJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: The Rise of SkywalkerBoots Riley
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Love BoostersJames Watkins
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ClayfaceSix 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 Skywalker Legacy
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
as Whitney Houston
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 Skywalker Legacy
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Skywalker Legacy
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Shelter
as Roberta
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. Naomi Ackie 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
The Skywalker Legacy
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shelter
as Roberta
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Score
as Gloria
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Blink Twice
as Frida
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Shelter
as Roberta
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
as Jannah
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
as Whitney Houston
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
as Jannah
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Song Kang-ho
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Lee Sun-kyun
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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