Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3942
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Cailee Spaeny 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.
Cailee Spaeny appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cailee. Alien: Romulus 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 action, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alex Garland, Rian Johnson, Beth McCarthy-Miller and others, Cailee Spaeny 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.
Alien: Romulus (2024) as Rain · On the Basis of Sex (2018) as Jane C. Ginsburg · Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025) as Simone Vivane
Career snapshot
Ranked #3942 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2018–2028
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Alien: Romulus
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
On the Basis of Sex
Most frequent director
Alex Garland
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Alex Garland
Most common genre
Drama
7 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
6.8
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
6.1
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. On the Basis of Sex, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Vice — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 4 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
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. On the Basis of Sex, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Vice.
Most productive era
2020s
9 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.03 films | 6.14 films |
| Action | 6.11 film | 3.52 films |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 7.21 film |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | 6.02 films |
| Crime | 6.81 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.71 film |
| Horror | — | 6.72 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jane C. Ginsburg. 7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2024Alien: Romulus
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2028Elden Ring
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.
13 of 13 films
as Rain
Directed by Fede Álvarez
as Priscilla
Directed by Sofia Coppola
as Jessie
Directed by Alex Garland
as Simone Vivane
Directed by Rian Johnson
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
Rain
Alien: Romulus (2024)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Rain gives Cailee Spaeny a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Priscilla
Priscilla (2023)
Performance score7.4
Priscilla asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Priscilla is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jane C. Ginsburg
On the Basis of Sex (2018)
Performance score7.4
On the Basis of Sex asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jane C. Ginsburg is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jessie
Civil War (2024)
Performance score7.3
Civil War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jessie 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 Rain
Start here. Alien: Romulus is the clearest statement of what Cailee Spaeny does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cailee 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.
On the Basis of Sex (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Alien: Romulus — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Priscilla (2023)
Keeps the drama register of On the Basis of Sex but asks for a colder reading of it.
Civil War (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Priscilla but asks for a colder reading of it.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Civil War — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Zoe Lister-Jones
Director
2 films together
Notably The Craft: Legacy
Alex Garland
Director
2 films together
Notably Civil War
Drew Goddard
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Times at the El Royale
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably Vice
Steven S. DeKnight
Director
1 film together
Notably Pacific Rim: Uprising
Mimi Leder
Director
1 film together
Notably On the Basis of Sex
Sofia Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably Priscilla
Fede Álvarez
Director
1 film together
Notably Alien: Romulus
Beth McCarthy-Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Netflix Tudum 2025
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Zoe Lister-Jones
Director
2 films together · 5.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Craft: LegacyAlex Garland
Director
2 films together · 3.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Civil WarFede Álvarez
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alien: RomulusMimi Leder
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
On the Basis of SexRian Johnson
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out MysteryAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ViceDrew Goddard
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad Times at the El RoyaleSofia Coppola
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PriscillaSteven S. DeKnight
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pacific Rim: UprisingBeth McCarthy-Miller
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Netflix Tudum 2025Six 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
On the Basis of Sex
as Jane C. Ginsburg
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Priscilla
as Priscilla
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
On the Basis of Sex
as Jane C. Ginsburg
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Vice
as 17 Year Old Lynne Vincent
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Alien: Romulus
as Rain
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. Cailee Spaeny 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
7 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
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
as Simone Vivane
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
as Simone Vivane
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Priscilla
as Priscilla
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
as Simone Vivane
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Civil War
as Jessie
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Pacific Rim: Uprising
as Amara Namani
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Civil War
as Jessie
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Alien: Romulus
as Rain
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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