Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16794
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ellen Greene represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Ellen is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ellen Greene appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ellen. Léon: The Professional is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 drama, romance, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Wayne Kramer, Michael Hoffman, Luc Besson and others, Ellen Greene 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.
Léon: The Professional (1994) as Mathilda's Mother · Little Shop of Horrors (1986) as Audrey · Pump Up the Volume (1990) as Jan Emerson
Career snapshot
Ranked #16794 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1986–2026
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Léon: The Professional
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Léon: The Professional
Most frequent director
Wayne Kramer
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Wayne Kramer
Most common genre
Drama
4 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
6.7
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
7.0 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. One Fine Day, Léon: The Professional, Rock-A-Doodle — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.0
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Little Shop of Horrors.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.72 films | 6.71 film | 2.01 film |
| Action | — | 8.51 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.91 film | 6.42 films | — | — |
| Crime | — | 8.51 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.51 film | 6.71 film | — |
| Horror | 6.91 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Audrey.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.5 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
The current state of the argument, as Renee.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Mathilda's Mother
Directed by Luc Besson
as Doris
Directed by Wayne Kramer
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
Mathilda's Mother
Léon: The Professional (1994)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mathilda's Mother gives Ellen Greene a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Audrey
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Performance score7.3
Little Shop of Horrors asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Audrey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jan Emerson
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
Performance score6.7
Pump Up the Volume asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jan Emerson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Doris
The Cooler (2003)
Performance score6.6
The Cooler asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Doris 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 Mathilda's Mother
Start here. Léon: The Professional is the clearest statement of what Ellen Greene does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ellen 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.
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
A deliberate change of key after Léon: The Professional — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
A deliberate change of key after Little Shop of Horrors — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Cooler (2003)
Keeps the drama register of Pump Up the Volume but asks for a colder reading of it.
California Scenario (2026)
Keeps the drama register of The Cooler but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Frank Oz
Director
1 film together
Notably Little Shop of Horrors
Allan Moyle
Director
1 film together
Notably Pump Up the Volume
Don Bluth
Director
1 film together
Notably Rock-A-Doodle
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably Léon: The Professional
Michael Hoffman
Director
1 film together
Notably One Fine Day
Wayne Kramer
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cooler
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Léon: The ProfessionalFrank Oz
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Little Shop of HorrorsAllan Moyle
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pump Up the VolumeWayne Kramer
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CoolerMichael Hoffman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One Fine DayDon Bluth
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rock-A-DoodleSix 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
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Pump Up the Volume
as Jan Emerson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Pump Up the Volume
as Jan Emerson
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
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. Ellen Greene 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
40 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
4 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
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Cooler
as Doris
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Rock-A-Doodle
as Goldie (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Rock-A-Doodle
as Goldie (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Léon: The Professional
as Mathilda's Mother
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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