Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2484
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Zach Gilford 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.
Zach Gilford appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Zach. Boy Genius is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 horror, thriller, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Roxanne Benjamin, Kim Jee-woon, James Gunn and others, Zach Gilford 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.
Boy Genius (2019) as Gordon · Super (2010) as Jerry · The Last Stand (2013) as Jerry Bailey
Career snapshot
Ranked #2484 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
2007–2028
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Boy Genius
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Boy Genius
Most frequent director
Roxanne Benjamin
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Roxanne Benjamin
Most common genre
Horror
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 25m
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
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Boy Genius, The Last Stand, Super — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Post Grad, Rise: Blood Hunter.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | 5.01 film | 6.51 film | 6.01 film |
| Action | 5.31 film | 6.32 films | — |
| Thriller | 5.31 film | 6.11 film | 0.01 film |
| Comedy | 5.01 film | 6.82 films | — |
| Crime | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | 5.01 film | — | — |
| Horror | 5.31 film | — | 2.92 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sailor.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Boy Genius
7.2 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.
Most recent film
2028Evil Dead Wrath
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.
8 of 8 films
as Jerry Bailey
Directed by Kim Jee-woon
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
Gordon
Boy Genius (2019)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gordon gives Zach Gilford a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Evil Dead Wrath
Evil Dead Wrath (2028)
Performance score6.5
Evil Dead Wrath asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bobby
After All (2025)
Performance score6.5
After All asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bobby is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ben
There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023)
Performance score6.5
There's Something Wrong with the Children asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ben 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 Gordon
Start here. Boy Genius is the clearest statement of what Zach Gilford does — accessible, 94 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Zach 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 Last Stand (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Boy Genius — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
There's Something Wrong with the Children (2023)
A deliberate change of key after The Last Stand — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
After All (2025)
A deliberate change of key after There's Something Wrong with the Children — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Evil Dead Wrath (2028)
Same director as After All, 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.
Vicky Jenson
Director
1 film together
Notably Post Grad
James Gunn
Director
1 film together
Notably Super
Kim Jee-woon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Stand
Roxanne Benjamin
Director
1 film together
Notably There's Something Wrong with the Children
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
James Gunn
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SuperKim Jee-woon
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 Last StandRoxanne Benjamin
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
There's Something Wrong with the ChildrenVicky Jenson
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Post GradSix 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
Boy Genius
as Gordon
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
After All
as Bobby
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Boy Genius
as Gordon
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Super
as Jerry
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Boy Genius
as Gordon
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. Zach Gilford 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
21 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.
Horror Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in horror, 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
Boy Genius
as Gordon
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Last Stand
as Jerry Bailey
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
After All
as Bobby
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
There's Something Wrong with the Children
as Ben
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Super
as Jerry
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Rise: Blood Hunter
as Sailor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Post Grad
as Adam Davies
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Boy Genius
as Gordon
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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