Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#28550
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ryan Simpkins 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.
Ryan Simpkins appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ryan. The Plan is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Emily Robinson, Joshua John Miller, Leigh Janiak and others, Ryan Simpkins 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 Plan (2026) · A Single Man (2009) as Jennifer Strunk · Fear Street: 1978 (2021) as Alice
Career snapshot
Ranked #28550 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2008–2026
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
The Plan
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
The Plan
Most frequent director
Leigh Janiak
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Leigh Janiak
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. A Single Man, Revolutionary Road, Pride and Glory — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.9
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. A Single Man, Revolutionary Road, Pride and Glory.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 6.93 films | 7.11 film | 6.84 films |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | — | 5.73 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.32 films | 6.02 films |
| Crime | 6.31 film | 5.61 film | — |
| Romance | 7.22 films | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.11 film | 6.35 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ed Small.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2026The Plan
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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
2026Ugly Cry
The current state of the argument, as Maya.
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 Maya
Directed by Emily Robinson
as Aubrey Pope
Directed by Dave McCary
as Jennifer Strunk
Directed by Tom Ford
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
The Plan
The Plan (2026)
Performance score9.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The role gives Ryan Simpkins a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Alice
Fear Street: 1978 (2021)
Performance score7.6
Fear Street: 1978 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alice is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Maya
Ugly Cry (2026)
Performance score7.4
Ugly Cry asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maya is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Aubrey Pope
Brigsby Bear (2017)
Performance score7.2
Brigsby Bear asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Aubrey Pope 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
Start here. The Plan is the clearest statement of what Ryan Simpkins does — accessible, 74 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ryan 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.
A Single Man (2009)
Keeps the drama register of The Plan but asks for a colder reading of it.
Brigsby Bear (2017)
Keeps the drama register of A Single Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fear Street: 1978 (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Brigsby Bear but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ugly Cry (2026)
Keeps the horror register of Fear Street: 1978 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Leigh Janiak
Director
2 films together
Notably Fear Street: 1978
Gavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together
Notably Pride and Glory
Sam Mendes
Director
1 film together
Notably Revolutionary Road
Tom Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably A Single Man
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably Twixt
Dave McCary
Director
1 film together
Notably Brigsby Bear
Joshua John Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably The Exorcism
Emily Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Ugly Cry
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Leigh Janiak
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Fear Street: 1978Tom Ford
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Single ManDave McCary
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brigsby BearEmily Robinson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ugly CrySam Mendes
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Revolutionary RoadGavin O'Connor
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pride and GloryFrancis Ford Coppola
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TwixtJoshua John Miller
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ExorcismSix 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 Plan
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Single Man
as Jennifer Strunk
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 Plan
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Revolutionary Road
as Ed Small
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Plan
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. Ryan Simpkins 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
8 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
The Plan
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Plan
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Please Baby Please
as Dickie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Pride and Glory
as Shannon Egan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Plan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Plan
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Revolutionary Road
as Ed Small
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Single Man
as Jennifer Strunk
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
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Reference
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