Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10692
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Paula Patton 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.
Paula Patton appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Paula. Sacrifice is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for tv movie, thriller, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Duncan Jones, Steven Brill, Steve Pink and others, Paula Patton 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.
Sacrifice (2020) as Daniella Hernandez · Disconnect (2013) as Cindy Hull · Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) as Jane
Career snapshot
Ranked #10692 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2005–2020
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Sacrifice
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Sacrifice
Most frequent director
Duncan Jones
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Duncan Jones
Most common genre
Action
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.4
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
2020s
8.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Sacrifice — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
8.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
8.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Swing Vote, Déjà Vu, London.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.13 films | 7.11 film | — |
| Action | 6.91 film | 6.45 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | 6.83 films | 8.21 film |
| Comedy | 6.22 films | 6.13 films | — |
| Crime | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Romance | 6.32 films | 6.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005London
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Alex.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2020Sacrifice
8.2 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. The current state of the argument, as Daniella Hernandez.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Jane
Directed by Brad Bird
as Claire Kuchever
Directed by Tony Scott
as Cindy Hull
Directed by Unknown
as Deb Rees
Directed by Baltasar Kormákur
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
Daniella Hernandez
Sacrifice (2020)
Performance score8.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Daniella Hernandez gives Paula Patton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jane
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Performance score7.5
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jane is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Claire Kuchever
Déjà Vu (2006)
Performance score7.3
Déjà Vu asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Claire Kuchever is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cindy Hull
Disconnect (2013)
Performance score7.2
Disconnect asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cindy Hull 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 Daniella Hernandez
Start here. Sacrifice is the clearest statement of what Paula Patton does — accessible, 76 minutes, and rated 8.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Paula 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.
Déjà Vu (2006)
Keeps the thriller register of Sacrifice but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Keeps the action register of Déjà Vu but asks for a colder reading of it.
Disconnect (2013)
Keeps the thriller register of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol but asks for a colder reading of it.
2 Guns (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Disconnect — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Andy Tennant
Director
1 film together
Notably Hitch
Tony Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Déjà Vu
Brad Bird
Director
1 film together
Notably Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Baltasar Kormákur
Director
1 film together
Notably 2 Guns
Steve Pink
Director
1 film together
Notably About Last Night
Steven Brill
Director
1 film together
Notably The Do-Over
Duncan Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Warcraft
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brad Bird
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mission: Impossible - Ghost ProtocolTony Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Déjà VuAndy Tennant
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HitchBaltasar Kormákur
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
2 GunsDuncan Jones
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WarcraftSteve Pink
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
About Last NightSteven Brill
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Do-OverSix 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
Sacrifice
as Daniella Hernandez
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
London
as Alex
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Sacrifice
as Daniella Hernandez
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Hitch
as Mandy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Sacrifice
as Daniella Hernandez
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. Paula Patton 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in action, 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
Sacrifice
as Daniella Hernandez
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sacrifice
as Daniella Hernandez
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
London
as Alex
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Disconnect
as Cindy Hull
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
as Jane
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
as Jane
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Hitch
as Mandy
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Swing Vote
as Kate Madison
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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