Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1045
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Parker Posey represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and Parker is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Parker Posey appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Parker. Dazed and Confused is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 comedy, horror, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Craig Johnson, Josh Margolin, Ari Aster and others, Parker Posey 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.
Dazed and Confused (1993) as Darla · Best in Show (2000) as Meg Swan · Thelma (2024) as Gail
Career snapshot
Ranked #1045 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
1993–2025
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Dazed and Confused
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Dazed and Confused
Most frequent director
Christopher Guest
5 films together
Longest collaboration
5×
With Christopher Guest
Most common genre
Comedy
17 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
6.6 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. You've Got Mail, Waiting for Guffman, Basquiat — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.6
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.6
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. You've Got Mail, Waiting for Guffman, Basquiat.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.43 films | 5.91 film | 6.34 films | 5.51 film |
| Action | — | 5.82 films | — | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | — | 5.91 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.54 films | 6.25 films | 5.64 films | 6.34 films |
| Crime | — | — | 3.91 film | — |
| Romance | 6.12 films | 5.72 films | 6.23 films | — |
| Horror | — | 5.93 films | — | 6.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Darla. 7.3 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
2025The Parenting
The current state of the argument, as Brenda.
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.
24 of 24 films
as Gail
Directed by Josh Margolin
as Patricia Eden
Directed by Nora Ephron
as Meg Swan
Directed by Christopher Guest
as Rita
Directed by Woody Allen
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
Darla
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Darla gives Parker Posey a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Gail
Thelma (2024)
Performance score7.0
Thelma asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gail is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Patricia Eden
You've Got Mail (1998)
Performance score7.0
You've Got Mail asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Patricia Eden is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Meg Swan
Best in Show (2000)
Performance score6.8
Best in Show asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Meg Swan 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 Darla
Start here. Dazed and Confused is the clearest statement of what Parker Posey does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Parker 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.
You've Got Mail (1998)
Keeps the comedy register of Dazed and Confused but asks for a colder reading of it.
Best in Show (2000)
Keeps the comedy register of You've Got Mail but asks for a colder reading of it.
Irrational Man (2015)
Keeps the comedy register of Best in Show but asks for a colder reading of it.
Thelma (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Irrational Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Christopher Guest
Director
5 films together
Notably Best in Show
Nora Ephron
Director
2 films together
Notably You've Got Mail
Woody Allen
Director
2 films together
Notably Irrational Man
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably Dazed and Confused
Wes Craven
Director
1 film together
Notably Scream 3
Roger Kumble
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sweetest Thing
Peter Howitt
Director
1 film together
Notably Laws of Attraction
David S. Goyer
Director
1 film together
Notably Blade: Trinity
Bryan Singer
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman Returns
Philip Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Hemingway & Gellhorn
Olivier Dahan
Director
1 film together
Notably Grace of Monaco
Ari Aster
Director
1 film together
Notably Beau Is Afraid
Josh Margolin
Director
1 film together
Notably Thelma
Craig Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Parenting
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Christopher Guest
Director
5 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 5 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Best in ShowWoody Allen
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Irrational ManNora Ephron
Director
2 films together · 6.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
You've Got MailRichard Linklater
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dazed and ConfusedJosh Margolin
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ThelmaAri Aster
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beau Is AfraidCraig Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ParentingPhilip Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hemingway & GellhornOlivier Dahan
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grace of MonacoWes Craven
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scream 3David S. Goyer
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blade: TrinityBryan Singer
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superman ReturnsPeter Howitt
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Laws of AttractionRoger Kumble
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sweetest ThingSix 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
Dazed and Confused
as Darla
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Hemingway & Gellhorn
as Mary Welsh Hemingway
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dazed and Confused
as Darla
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dazed and Confused
as Darla
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dazed and Confused
as Darla
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. Parker Posey 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
32 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
17 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
Dazed and Confused
as Darla
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Scream 3
as Jennifer Jolie
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Grace of Monaco
as Madge Tivey-Faucon
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Scream 3
as Jennifer Jolie
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Thelma
as Gail
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Thelma
as Gail
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Café Society
as Rad Taylor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
You've Got Mail
as Patricia Eden
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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