Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6199
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Yara Shahidi 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.
Yara Shahidi appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Yara. Between the World and Me 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 action, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Timo Tjahjanto, Catherine Hardwicke, David Lowery and others, Yara Shahidi 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.
Between the World and Me (2020) as Self · PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021) as Kendra Wilson (voice) · All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #6199 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
2009–2027
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Between the World and Me
Average Nutevio score
5.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Between the World and Me
Most frequent director
Karey Kirkpatrick
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Karey Kirkpatrick
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 26m
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
6.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Sun Is Also a Star, This Changes Everything, Smallfoot — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 8 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
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. Imagine That.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | — | 6.82 films | 5.03 films |
| Action | — | 6.13 films | 4.23 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.13 films | 0.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | 6.53 films | 6.84 films |
| Crime | — | 5.11 film | 0.01 film |
| Romance | — | 6.91 film | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2009Imagine That
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Olivia Danielson.
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
2027The Beekeeper 2
The current state of the argument.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Natasha Kingsley
Directed by Ry Russo-Young
as Kendra Wilson (voice)
Directed by Unknown
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
Self
Between the World and Me (2020)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Yara Shahidi a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jane
Sitting in Bars with Cake (2023)
Performance score7.6
Sitting in Bars with Cake 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
Natasha Kingsley
The Sun Is Also a Star (2019)
Performance score7.5
The Sun Is Also a Star asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Natasha Kingsley is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kendra Wilson (voice)
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
Performance score7.2
PAW Patrol: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kendra Wilson (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 Self
Start here. Between the World and Me is the clearest statement of what Yara Shahidi does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Yara 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 Sun Is Also a Star (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Between the World and Me but asks for a colder reading of it.
All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Sun Is Also a Star — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
A deliberate change of key after All In: The Fight for Democracy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Sitting in Bars with Cake (2023)
Same director as PAW Patrol: The Movie, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Karey Kirkpatrick
Director
2 films together
Notably Smallfoot
Phillip Noyce
Director
1 film together
Notably Salt
Gregor Jordan
Director
1 film together
Notably Unthinkable
Peter Shin
Director
1 film together
Notably Family Guy Presents: It's a Trap!
Rob Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Alex Cross
Jim Field Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Butter
Ry Russo-Young
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sun Is Also a Star
Liz Garbus
Director
1 film together
Notably All In: The Fight for Democracy
Nora Twomey
Director
1 film together
Notably My Father's Dragon
David Lowery
Director
1 film together
Notably Peter Pan & Wendy
Catherine Hardwicke
Director
1 film together
Notably Street Smart
Timo Tjahjanto
Director
1 film together
Notably The Beekeeper 2
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Karey Kirkpatrick
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
SmallfootLiz Garbus
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All In: The Fight for DemocracyNora Twomey
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Father's DragonRy Russo-Young
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sun Is Also a StarPeter Shin
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Family Guy Presents: It's a Trap!Gregor Jordan
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnthinkablePhillip Noyce
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SaltJim Field Smith
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ButterDavid Lowery
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Peter Pan & WendyRob Cohen
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alex CrossTimo Tjahjanto
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Beekeeper 2Catherine Hardwicke
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Street SmartSix 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
Between the World and Me
as Self
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 Sun Is Also a Star
as Natasha Kingsley
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Between the World and Me
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
All In: The Fight for Democracy
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Between the World and Me
as Self
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. Yara Shahidi 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
8 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
Between the World and Me
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Salt
as Salt's Young Neighbor
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Sun Is Also a Star
as Natasha Kingsley
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Alex Cross
as Janelle Cross
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
PAW Patrol: The Movie
as Kendra Wilson (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Peter Pan & Wendy
as Tinker Bell
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
My Father's Dragon
as Callie (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Butter
as Destiny
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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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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