Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6004
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Dan Levy 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.
Dan Levy appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dan. Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, adventure, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Peter Atencio, Kornél Mundruczó, Chris Miller and others, Dan Levy 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.
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine (2021) as Self (archive footage) (uncredited) · Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025) as self · Happiest Season (2020) as John
Career snapshot
Ranked #6004 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2013–2027
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
Most frequent director
Peter Atencio
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Peter Atencio
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 23m
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
6.3
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
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show, Admission — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
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 Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show, Admission.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 5.61 film | 4.23 films |
| Comedy | 5.61 film | 5.05 films |
| Romance | 5.61 film | 7.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2013Admission
Where our catalogue meets this career, as James.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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
2027Animal Friends
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.
12 of 12 films
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Directed by Unknown
as John
Directed by Clea DuVall
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
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine (2021)
Performance score9.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self (archive footage) (uncredited) gives Dan Levy a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
self
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025)
Performance score7.7
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery 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#3
Self
The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show (2019)
Performance score7.5
The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show 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
John
Happiest Season (2020)
Performance score7.0
Happiest Season asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. John 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 Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Start here. Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine is the clearest statement of what Dan Levy does — accessible, 4 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dan 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.
The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show (2019)
Same director as Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Happiest Season (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Good Grief (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Happiest Season but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Good Grief — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paul Weitz
Director
1 film together
Notably Admission
Clea DuVall
Director
1 film together
Notably Happiest Season
Justin Simien
Director
1 film together
Notably Haunted Mansion
Dan Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Grief
Jerry Seinfeld
Director
1 film together
Notably Unfrosted
Ally Pankiw
Director
1 film together
Notably Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery
Chris Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Smurfs
Kornél Mundruczó
Director
1 film together
Notably At the Sea
Peter Atencio
Director
1 film together
Notably Animal Friends
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ally Pankiw
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lilith Fair: Building a MysteryClea DuVall
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happiest SeasonJustin Simien
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Haunted MansionDan Levy
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good GriefChris Miller
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SmurfsPaul Weitz
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AdmissionJerry Seinfeld
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnfrostedPeter Atencio
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Animal FriendsKornél Mundruczó
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
At the SeaSix 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
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Smurfs
as Joel (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
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Unfrosted
as Andy Warhol
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
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. Dan Levy 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 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
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Smurfs
as Joel (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Smurfs
as Joel (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Catherine O'Hara: All of Us Shine
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery
as self
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Admission
as James
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Smurfs
as Joel (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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