Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1441
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ebon Moss-Bachrach represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Ebon is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ebon Moss-Bachrach appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ebon. The Royal Tenenbaums is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Anthony Russo, Christopher Storer, Matt Shakman and others, Ebon Moss-Bachrach 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.
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) as Frederick - Bellboy · The Fantastic 4: First Steps (2025) as Ben Grimm / The Thing · American Splendor (2003) as MTV Director
Career snapshot
Ranked #1441 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2001–2027
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
The Royal Tenenbaums
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Royal Tenenbaums
Most frequent director
Anthony Russo
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Anthony Russo
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Evening, The Lake House, Mona Lisa Smile — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Evening, The Lake House, Mona Lisa Smile.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.96 films | 6.12 films | 4.65 films |
| Action | — | — | 4.53 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.91 film |
| Comedy | 7.32 films | 6.12 films | 6.13 films |
| Crime | — | 5.91 film | — |
| Romance | 6.63 films | — | 3.93 films |
| Horror | — | — | 5.91 film |
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 Frederick - Bellboy. 7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2025The Fantastic 4: First Steps
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2027The Man I Love
The current state of the argument, as Gene.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Ben Grimm / The Thing
Directed by Matt Shakman
as Richard 'Richie' Jerimovich
Directed by Christopher Storer
as Frederick - Bellboy
Directed by Wes Anderson
as Henry Wyler
Directed by Unknown
as MTV Director
Directed by Shari Springer Berman
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
Ben Grimm / The Thing
The Fantastic 4: First Steps (2025)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ben Grimm / The Thing gives Ebon Moss-Bachrach a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Richard 'Richie' Jerimovich
Gary (2026)
Performance score7.3
Gary asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Richard 'Richie' Jerimovich is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Frederick - Bellboy
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Performance score7.3
The Royal Tenenbaums asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frederick - Bellboy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Henry Wyler
The Lake House (2006)
Performance score7.1
The Lake House asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Henry Wyler 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 Ben Grimm / The Thing
Start here. The Fantastic 4: First Steps is the clearest statement of what Ebon Moss-Bachrach does — accessible, 115 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ebon 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 Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
A deliberate change of key after The Fantastic 4: First Steps — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
American Splendor (2003)
Keeps the comedy register of The Royal Tenenbaums but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Lake House (2006)
Keeps the drama register of American Splendor but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gary (2026)
Keeps the drama register of The Lake House but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Anthony Russo
Director
2 films together
Notably Avengers: Doomsday
Henry Bean
Director
1 film together
Notably The Believer
Wes Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Royal Tenenbaums
Shari Springer Berman
Director
1 film together
Notably American Splendor
Mike Newell
Director
1 film together
Notably Mona Lisa Smile
Lajos Koltai
Director
1 film together
Notably Evening
Bridget Savage Cole
Director
1 film together
Notably Blow the Man Down
Michael Almereyda
Director
1 film together
Notably Tesla
Lena Dunham
Director
1 film together
Notably Sharp Stick
Gene Stupnitsky
Director
1 film together
Notably No Hard Feelings
Karrie Crouse
Director
1 film together
Notably Hold Your Breath
Matt Shakman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Fantastic 4: First Steps
Christopher Storer
Director
1 film together
Notably Gary
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Anthony Russo
Director
2 films together · 3.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Avengers: DoomsdayWes Anderson
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Royal TenenbaumsMatt Shakman
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Fantastic 4: First StepsShari Springer Berman
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American SplendorMike Newell
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mona Lisa SmileHenry Bean
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 BelieverGene Stupnitsky
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
No Hard FeelingsChristopher Storer
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GaryBridget Savage Cole
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blow the Man DownKarrie Crouse
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hold Your BreathMichael Almereyda
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TeslaLajos Koltai
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EveningLena Dunham
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sharp StickSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
1 win
1 win · latest 2023
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Royal Tenenbaums
as Frederick - Bellboy
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 Lake House
as Henry Wyler
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Royal Tenenbaums
as Frederick - Bellboy
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Royal Tenenbaums
as Frederick - Bellboy
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
as Ben Grimm / The Thing
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. Ebon Moss-Bachrach 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
26 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
13 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
The Royal Tenenbaums
as Frederick - Bellboy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
as Ben Grimm / The Thing
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Evening
as Luc
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Blow the Man Down
as Gorski
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
as Ben Grimm / The Thing
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Fantastic 4: First Steps
as Ben Grimm / The Thing
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Lying and Stealing
as Ray Warding
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Avengers: Doomsday
as Ben Grimm / The Thing
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: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Tom Wilkinson
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Léa Seydoux
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Ebon Moss-Bachrach 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
