Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2663
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Imelda Staunton represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Imelda is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Imelda Staunton appears in 23 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Imelda. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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, documentary, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Pablo Trapero, Simon Curtis, Joachim Rønning and others, Imelda Staunton 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.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) as Dolores Umbridge · Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) as Dolores Umbridge · Freedom Writers (2007) as Margaret Campbell
Career snapshot
Ranked #2663 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
23
1992–2026
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Freedom Writers
Most frequent director
David Yates
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Yates
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.6
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
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, Pride, Maleficent — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Shakespeare in Love, Sense and Sensibility, Much Ado About Nothing.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.94 films | 7.02 films | 7.41 film | 3.52 films |
| Action | — | — | 7.31 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.73 films | 6.73 films | 7.02 films | 6.73 films |
| Crime | — | 7.71 film | — | — |
| Romance | 7.03 films | — | 7.31 film | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1992Peter's Friends
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mary Charleston.
Career peak
2007Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2010Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026& Sons
The current state of the argument, as Isabel.
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.
23 of 23 films
as Dolores Umbridge
Directed by David Yates
as Dolores Umbridge
Directed by David Yates
as Margaret Campbell
Directed by Richard LaGravenese
as Knotgrass
Directed by Robert Stromberg
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
Dolores Umbridge
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dolores Umbridge gives Imelda Staunton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dolores Umbridge
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
Performance score7.8
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dolores Umbridge is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Margaret Campbell
Freedom Writers (2007)
Performance score7.7
Freedom Writers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Margaret Campbell is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Knotgrass
Maleficent (2014)
Performance score7.6
Maleficent asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Knotgrass 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 Dolores Umbridge
Start here. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the clearest statement of what Imelda Staunton does — accessible, 138 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Imelda 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.
Freedom Writers (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Freedom Writers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Maleficent (2014)
Keeps the fantasy register of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pride (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Maleficent — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kenneth Branagh
Director
2 films together
Notably Much Ado About Nothing
Ang Lee
Director
2 films together
Notably Sense and Sensibility
David Yates
Director
2 films together
Notably Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
John Madden
Director
1 film together
Notably Shakespeare in Love
Nick Park
Director
1 film together
Notably Chicken Run
Kirk Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Nanny McPhee
Richard LaGravenese
Director
1 film together
Notably Freedom Writers
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Alice in Wonderland
Peter Lord
Director
1 film together
Notably The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!
Robert Stromberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent
Joachim Rønning
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Simon Curtis
Director
1 film together
Notably Downton Abbey: A New Era
Pablo Trapero
Director
1 film together
Notably & Sons
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Yates
Director
2 films together · 8.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1Ang Lee
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Sense and SensibilityKenneth Branagh
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Much Ado About NothingRichard LaGravenese
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freedom WritersJoachim Rønning
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maleficent: Mistress of EvilRobert Stromberg
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaleficentSimon Curtis
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Downton Abbey: A New EraTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alice in WonderlandNick Park
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chicken RunJohn Madden
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shakespeare in LoveKirk Jones
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nanny McPheePeter Lord
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!Pablo Trapero
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
& SonsSix 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
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
as Dolores Umbridge
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Maleficent
as Knotgrass
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
as Dolores Umbridge
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
as Dolores Umbridge
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
as Dolores Umbridge
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. Imelda Staunton 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
34 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
11 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
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
as Dolores Umbridge
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Freedom Writers
as Margaret Campbell
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Downton Abbey: A New Era
as Maud Bagshaw
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Alice in Wonderland
as Talking Flowers (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
as Dolores Umbridge
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Maleficent
as Knotgrass
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shakespeare in Love
as Nurse
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Alice in Wonderland
as Talking Flowers (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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