Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#62
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Samantha Morton represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Samantha is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Samantha Morton appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Samantha. The Odyssey is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 action, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Christopher Nolan, Asif Kapadia, Darren Aronofsky and others, Samantha Morton 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 Odyssey (2026) as Circe · The Whale (2022) as Mary · Synecdoche, New York (2008) as Hazel
Career snapshot
Ranked #62 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1999–2026
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
The Odyssey
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Odyssey
Most frequent director
Christopher Nolan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Christopher Nolan
Most common genre
Drama
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.6
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
7.0 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Odyssey, Anemone, 2073 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.0
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
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. Sweet and Lowdown.
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 | 6.71 film | 6.88 films | 5.72 films | 6.85 films |
| Action | — | 7.41 film | 6.41 film | 8.01 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.82 films | 6.01 film | 6.71 film |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | — | 6.21 film |
| Romance | — | 6.53 films | 5.61 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hattie.
Career peak
2003In America
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
2026The Odyssey
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Circe.
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 Circe
Directed by Christopher Nolan
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
Circe
The Odyssey (2026)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Circe gives Samantha Morton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mary
The Whale (2022)
Performance score7.8
The Whale asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hazel
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Performance score7.8
Synecdoche, New York asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hazel is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Debbie Curtis
Control (2007)
Performance score7.8
Control asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Debbie Curtis 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 Circe
Start here. The Odyssey is the clearest statement of what Samantha Morton does — accessible, 173 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Samantha 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.
In America (2003)
A deliberate change of key after The Odyssey — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Control (2007)
Keeps the drama register of In America but asks for a colder reading of it.
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Keeps the drama register of Control but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Whale (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Synecdoche, New York but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Sweet and Lowdown
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Minority Report
Jim Sheridan
Director
1 film together
Notably In America
Shekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together
Notably Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Charlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Synecdoche, New York
Andrew Stanton
Director
1 film together
Notably John Carter
David Cronenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Cosmopolis
Liv Ullmann
Director
1 film together
Notably Miss Julie
John McNaughton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Harvest
David Yates
Director
1 film together
Notably Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Maria Schrader
Director
1 film together
Notably She Said
Darren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together
Notably The Whale
Asif Kapadia
Director
1 film together
Notably 2073
Christopher Nolan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Odyssey
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Christopher Nolan
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The OdysseyDarren Aronofsky
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 WhaleCharlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Synecdoche, New YorkSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Minority ReportDavid Yates
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find ThemMaria Schrader
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She SaidJim Sheridan
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In AmericaAsif 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
2073Shekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Elizabeth: The Golden AgeWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sweet and LowdownAndrew Stanton
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
John CarterJohn McNaughton
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HarvestDavid Cronenberg
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CosmopolisLiv Ullmann
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miss JulieSix 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 Whale
as Mary
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
She Said
as Zelda Perkins
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 Odyssey
as Circe
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Odyssey
as Circe
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Odyssey
as Circe
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. Samantha Morton 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
27 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.
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
The Odyssey
as Circe
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Odyssey
as Circe
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
She Said
as Zelda Perkins
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Harvest
as Katherine
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Odyssey
as Circe
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Odyssey
as Circe
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Sweet and Lowdown
as Hattie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Messenger
as Olivia Pitterson
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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Have your say
Community
Which Samantha Morton performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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