Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4075
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Riley Keough 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.
Riley Keough appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Riley. Mad Max: Fury Road is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Noah Baumbach, Trey Edward Shults, Nathan Zellner and others, Riley Keough 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.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) as Capable · The Devil All the Time (2020) as Sandy Henderson · LA Originals (2020) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #4075 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2010–2026
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Mad Max: Fury Road
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Mad Max: Fury Road
Most frequent director
Noah Baumbach
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Noah Baumbach
Most common genre
Drama
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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. Earthquake Bird, Under the Silver Lake, Hold the Dark — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 10 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. Earthquake Bird, Under the Silver Lake, Hold the Dark.
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 | 6.28 films | 5.48 films |
| Action | 7.32 films | — |
| Thriller | 5.93 films | 6.15 films |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 6.24 films |
| Crime | 6.23 films | 6.72 films |
| Romance | 6.03 films | — |
| Horror | — | 6.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010The Runaways
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Marie Currie.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.9 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
2026Butterfly Jam
The current state of the argument, as Zalya.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Capable
Directed by George Miller
as Sandy Henderson
Directed by Antonio Campos
as Anna
Directed by Unknown
as Emily Lighton (voice)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
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
Capable
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Capable gives Riley Keough a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sandy Henderson
The Devil All the Time (2020)
Performance score7.3
The Devil All the Time asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sandy Henderson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Anna
Rosebush Pruning (2026)
Performance score7.1
Rosebush Pruning asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anna is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Emily Lighton (voice)
The Guilty (2021)
Performance score6.9
The Guilty asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Emily Lighton (voice) 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 Capable
Start here. Mad Max: Fury Road is the clearest statement of what Riley Keough does — accessible, 121 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Riley 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 Devil All the Time (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Mad Max: Fury Road — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
LA Originals (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Devil All the Time — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Guilty (2021)
A deliberate change of key after LA Originals — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Rosebush Pruning (2026)
Keeps the drama register of The Guilty but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Floria Sigismondi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Runaways
George Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Mad Max: Fury Road
Charlie McDowell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Discovery
So Yong Kim
Director
1 film together
Notably Lovesong
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Paterno
Jeremy Saulnier
Director
1 film together
Notably Hold the Dark
David Robert Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Under the Silver Lake
Wash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together
Notably Earthquake Bird
Severin Fiala
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lodge
Antonio Campos
Director
1 film together
Notably The Devil All the Time
Janicza Bravo
Director
1 film together
Notably Zola
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably The Guilty
Nathan Zellner
Director
1 film together
Notably Sasquatch Sunset
Trey Edward Shults
Director
1 film together
Notably Hurry Up Tomorrow
Noah Baumbach
Director
1 film together
Notably Jay Kelly
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George Miller
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mad Max: Fury RoadAntonio Campos
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Devil All the TimeFloria Sigismondi
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The RunawaysAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GuiltyDavid Robert Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Under the Silver LakeCharlie McDowell
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DiscoveryNoah Baumbach
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jay KellyJanicza Bravo
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ZolaBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PaternoSeverin Fiala
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 LodgeWash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Earthquake BirdNathan Zellner
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sasquatch SunsetSo Yong Kim
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LovesongJeremy Saulnier
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hold the DarkTrey Edward Shults
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hurry Up TomorrowSix 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
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Runaways
as Marie Currie
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Manodrome
as Mother (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
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. Riley Keough 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
16 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
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Devil All the Time
as Sandy Henderson
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Lovesong
as Sarah
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Hold the Dark
as Medora Slone
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Logan Lucky
as Mellie Logan
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mad Max: Fury Road
as Capable
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: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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