Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4590
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Amy Madigan represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 44 years in, and Amy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Amy Madigan appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Amy. Weapons is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 mystery, horror, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Zach Cregger, Scott Cooper, Craig Zobel and others, Amy Madigan 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.
Weapons (2025) as Gladys · The Last Full Measure (2020) as Donna Burr · Gone Baby Gone (2007) as Bea McCready
Career snapshot
Ranked #4590 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1984–2028
Career length
44 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Weapons
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Gone Baby Gone
Most frequent director
Zach Cregger
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Zach Cregger
Most common genre
Drama
12 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
6.7
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
1980s
7.0 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Uncle Buck, Field of Dreams, Places in the Heart — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Uncle Buck, Field of Dreams, Places in the Heart.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.03 films | 7.02 films | 6.14 films | 6.73 films |
| Action | — | — | — | 7.02 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.11 film | 6.71 film |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | — | 6.03 films | — |
| Crime | — | 7.31 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | 6.03 films | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.04 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Viola Kelsey.
Career peak
1989Field of Dreams
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2007Gone Baby Gone
7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2028Gladys
The current state of the argument, as Gladys.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Gladys
Directed by Zach Cregger
as Annie Kinsella
Directed by Phil Alden Robinson
as Donna Burr
Directed by Todd Robinson
as Bea McCready
Directed by Ben Affleck
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
Gladys
Weapons (2025)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gladys gives Amy Madigan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Annie Kinsella
Field of Dreams (1989)
Performance score7.4
Field of Dreams asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Annie Kinsella is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Donna Burr
The Last Full Measure (2020)
Performance score7.2
The Last Full Measure asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Donna Burr is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bea McCready
Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Performance score7.2
Gone Baby Gone asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bea McCready 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 Gladys
Start here. Weapons is the clearest statement of what Amy Madigan does — accessible, 129 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Amy 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.
Places in the Heart (1984)
A deliberate change of key after Weapons — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Field of Dreams (1989)
Keeps the drama register of Places in the Heart but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gone Baby Gone (2007)
Keeps the drama register of Field of Dreams but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Last Full Measure (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Gone Baby Gone but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Benton
Director
1 film together
Notably Places in the Heart
Phil Alden Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Field of Dreams
John Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably Uncle Buck
Ed Harris
Director
1 film together
Notably Pollock
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Gone Baby Gone
Michael Pavone
Director
1 film together
Notably That's What I Am
Liz W. Garcia
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lifeguard
Michael Berry
Director
1 film together
Notably Frontera
Warren Beatty
Director
1 film together
Notably Rules Don't Apply
Todd Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Full Measure
Craig Zobel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hunt
Scott Cooper
Director
1 film together
Notably Antlers
Zach Cregger
Director
1 film together
Notably Weapons
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Zach Cregger
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WeaponsTodd Robinson
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last Full MeasureBen Affleck
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gone Baby GoneRobert Benton
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Places in the HeartPhil Alden 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
Field of DreamsMichael Pavone
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
That's What I AmJohn Hughes
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Uncle BuckCraig Zobel
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HuntEd Harris
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PollockMichael Berry
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FronteraScott Cooper
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AntlersWarren Beatty
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rules Don't ApplyLiz W. Garcia
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The LifeguardSix 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
Weapons
as Gladys
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
That's What I Am
as Principal Kelner
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Places in the Heart
as Viola Kelsey
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Last Full Measure
as Donna Burr
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Weapons
as Gladys
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. Amy Madigan 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
44 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
12 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
Weapons
as Gladys
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Weapons
as Gladys
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
That's What I Am
as Principal Kelner
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Gone Baby Gone
as Bea McCready
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Last Full Measure
as Donna Burr
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Hunt
as Ma
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
That's What I Am
as Principal Kelner
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Weapons
as Gladys
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
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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