Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9935
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ann-Margret represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 60 years in, and Ann-Margret is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ann-Margret appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ann-Margret. Interstate 60 is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 documentary, romance, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jeffrey Schwarz, Michael Lembeck, Zach Braff and others, Ann-Margret 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.
Interstate 60 (2002) as Mrs. James · Any Given Sunday (1999) as Margaret Pagniacci · Magic (1978) as Peggy Ann Snow
Career snapshot
Ranked #9935 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1963–2023
Career length
60 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Interstate 60
Average Nutevio score
5.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Interstate 60
Most frequent director
George Sidney
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With George Sidney
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.6
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
1990s
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Any Given Sunday, Newsies — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Viva Las Vegas, Bye Bye Birdie.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 1960s | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.72 films | 6.82 films | 7.41 film | — | 6.01 film |
| Action | — | — | — | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.22 films | 6.01 film | — | 5.73 films | 6.71 film | 6.01 film |
| Crime | — | — | — | 5.61 film | 6.71 film | — |
| Romance | 6.21 film | — | — | 5.91 film | — | 6.01 film |
| Horror | — | 6.81 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1963Bye Bye Birdie
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kim McAfee.
Career peak
1978Magic
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2002Interstate 60
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Self (archive footage).
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.
15 of 15 films
as Mrs. James
Directed by Bob Gale
as Peggy Ann Snow
Directed by Richard Attenborough
as Medda Larkson
Directed by Kenny Ortega
as Annie Santori
Directed by Zach Braff
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
Mrs. James
Interstate 60 (2002)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mrs. James gives Ann-Margret a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Peggy Ann Snow
Magic (1978)
Performance score7.2
Magic asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Peggy Ann Snow is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Medda Larkson
Newsies (1992)
Performance score7.1
Newsies asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Medda Larkson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Nora
Tommy (1975)
Performance score7.0
Tommy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nora 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 Mrs. James
Start here. Interstate 60 is the clearest statement of what Ann-Margret does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ann-Margret 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.
Tommy (1975)
Keeps the drama register of Interstate 60 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Magic (1978)
Keeps the drama register of Tommy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Newsies (1992)
Keeps the drama register of Magic but asks for a colder reading of it.
Going in Style (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Newsies — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
George Sidney
Director
2 films together
Notably Viva Las Vegas
Ken Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably Tommy
Richard Attenborough
Director
1 film together
Notably Magic
Hal Needham
Director
1 film together
Notably The Villain
Kenny Ortega
Director
1 film together
Notably Newsies
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably Any Given Sunday
Bob Gale
Director
1 film together
Notably Interstate 60
Tim Story
Director
1 film together
Notably Taxi
Peyton Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably The Break-Up
Zach Braff
Director
1 film together
Notably Going in Style
Michael Lembeck
Director
1 film together
Notably Queen Bees
Jeffrey Schwarz
Director
1 film together
Notably Commitment to Life
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George Sidney
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Viva Las VegasBob Gale
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Interstate 60Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Any Given SundayRichard Attenborough
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MagicZach Braff
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Going in StyleKenny Ortega
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NewsiesKen Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TommyMichael Lembeck
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Queen BeesHal Needham
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 VillainPeyton Reed
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Break-UpTim Story
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TaxiJeffrey Schwarz
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Commitment to LifeSix 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
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tommy
as Nora
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
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. Ann-Margret 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
60 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
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
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Magic
as Peggy Ann Snow
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tommy
as Nora
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Interstate 60
as Mrs. James
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Taxi
as Mrs. Washburn
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Newsies
as Medda Larkson
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Villain
as Charming Jones
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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