Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#702
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Alanna Ubach represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Alanna is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Alanna Ubach appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Alanna. Coco is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kelly Marcel, Charlie Day, Jay Roach and others, Alanna Ubach 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.
Coco (2017) as Mamá Imelda (voice) · To the Bone (2017) as Karen · A Celebration of the Music from Coco (2020) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #702 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1993–2024
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Coco
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Coco
Most frequent director
Jay Roach
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jay Roach
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
2010s
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Bombshell, Wyrm, Gloria Bell — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 8 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. Freeway, Virtuosity, Renaissance Man.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.32 films | — | 6.74 films | — |
| Action | 5.51 film | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | 6.02 films | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.43 films | 6.25 films | 6.54 films | 4.61 film |
| Crime | 6.02 films | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | 5.93 films | 6.42 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1993Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Maria.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2017Coco
8.4 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
The current state of the argument, as Nova.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
Directed by Lee Unkrich
as Boo / Cletus / Fresca / Miss Daisy (voice)
Directed by Gore Verbinski
as Nova
Directed by Kelly Marcel
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Mamá Imelda (voice)
Coco (2017)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mamá Imelda (voice) gives Alanna Ubach a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Karen
To the Bone (2017)
Performance score7.1
To the Bone asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Karen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
A Celebration of the Music from Coco (2020)
Performance score6.9
A Celebration of the Music from Coco asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Boo / Cletus / Fresca / Miss Daisy (voice)
Rango (2011)
Performance score6.8
Rango asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Boo / Cletus / Fresca / Miss Daisy (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 Mamá Imelda (voice)
Start here. Coco is the clearest statement of what Alanna Ubach does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Alanna 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.
Rango (2011)
Keeps the adventure register of Coco but asks for a colder reading of it.
To the Bone (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Rango — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Celebration of the Music from Coco (2020)
A deliberate change of key after To the Bone — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
A deliberate change of key after A Celebration of the Music from Coco — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jay Roach
Director
2 films together
Notably Bombshell
Bill Duke
Director
1 film together
Notably Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit
Penny Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Renaissance Man
Robert Luketic
Director
1 film together
Notably Legally Blonde
Angela Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Herbie Fully Loaded
Gore Verbinski
Director
1 film together
Notably Rango
Jake Kasdan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Teacher
Mark Pellington
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Word
Marti Noxon
Director
1 film together
Notably To the Bone
Lee Unkrich
Director
1 film together
Notably Coco
Charlie Day
Director
1 film together
Notably Fool's Paradise
Kelly Marcel
Director
1 film together
Notably Venom: The Last Dance
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jay Roach
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
BombshellLee Unkrich
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CocoMarti Noxon
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
To the BoneGore Verbinski
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RangoKelly Marcel
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Venom: The Last DanceRobert Luketic
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Legally BlondeMark Pellington
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last WordBill Duke
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sister Act 2: Back in the HabitPenny Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Renaissance ManAngela Robinson
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Herbie Fully LoadedJake Kasdan
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad TeacherCharlie Day
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fool's ParadiseSix 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
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Herbie Fully Loaded
as Reporter (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
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. Alanna Ubach 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
31 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
13 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
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Gloria Bell
as Veronica
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Freeway
as Mesquita
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Venom: The Last Dance
as Nova
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Rango
as Boo / Cletus / Fresca / Miss Daisy (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Coco
as Mamá Imelda (voice)
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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Reference
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