Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3686
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Charles Melton 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.
Charles Melton appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Charles. Warfare is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 science fiction, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Kwan, Nicolas Winding Refn, Ray Mendoza and others, Charles Melton 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.
Warfare (2025) as Jake · Bad Boys for Life (2020) as Rafe · The Sun Is Also a Star (2019) as Daniel Jae Ho Bae
Career snapshot
Ranked #3686 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2019–2027
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Warfare
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Bad Boys for Life
Most frequent director
Daniel Kwan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Kwan
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 28m
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Sun Is Also a Star — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
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. The Sun Is Also a Star.
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 | 6.91 film | 5.64 films |
| Action | — | 6.93 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.72 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.32 films |
| Crime | — | 7.11 film |
| Romance | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Daniel Jae Ho Bae. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2027Untitled Daniels Event Film
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.
10 of 10 films
as Daniel Jae Ho Bae
Directed by Ry Russo-Young
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
Daniel Jae Ho Bae
The Sun Is Also a Star (2019)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Daniel Jae Ho Bae gives Charles Melton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rafe
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
Performance score7.2
Bad Boys for Life asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rafe is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Chris
Heart of Champions (2021)
Performance score7.1
Heart of Champions asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chris is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jake
Warfare (2025)
Performance score7.0
Warfare asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jake 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 Daniel Jae Ho Bae
Start here. The Sun Is Also a Star is the clearest statement of what Charles Melton does — accessible, 100 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Charles 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.
Bad Boys for Life (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Sun Is Also a Star — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Heart of Champions (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Bad Boys for Life — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
May December (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Heart of Champions but asks for a colder reading of it.
Warfare (2025)
A deliberate change of key after May December — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ry Russo-Young
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sun Is Also a Star
Bilall Fallah
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Boys for Life
Chase Sui Wonders
Director
1 film together
Notably Wake
Henry Joost
Director
1 film together
Notably Secret Headquarters
Todd Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably May December
Ray Mendoza
Director
1 film together
Notably Warfare
Nicolas Winding Refn
Director
1 film together
Notably Her Private Hell
Daniel Kwan
Director
1 film together
Notably Untitled Daniels Event Film
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ray Mendoza
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WarfareBilall Fallah
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad Boys for LifeRy Russo-Young
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sun Is Also a StarTodd Haynes
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
May DecemberHenry Joost
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Secret HeadquartersNicolas Winding Refn
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Her Private HellChase Sui Wonders
Director
1 film together · 3.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WakeDaniel Kwan
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Six 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
Bad Boys for Life
as Rafe
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Sun Is Also a Star
as Daniel Jae Ho Bae
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Bad Boys for Life
as Rafe
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mainstream
as Charles Melton
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Sun Is Also a Star
as Daniel Jae Ho Bae
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. Charles Melton 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
5 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
Warfare
as Jake
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Bad Boys for Life
as Rafe
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Sun Is Also a Star
as Daniel Jae Ho Bae
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Bad Boys for Life
as Rafe
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Bad Boys for Life
as Rafe
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bad Boys for Life
as Rafe
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Sun Is Also a Star
as Daniel Jae Ho Bae
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Her Private Hell
as Private K
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: 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 thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
Which Charles Melton performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
