Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5682
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jodhi May represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Jodhi is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jodhi May appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jodhi. The Last of the Mohicans is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 documentary, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Agnieszka Smoczyńska, Ciarán Donnelly, Rodrigo Cortés and others, Jodhi May 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 Last of the Mohicans (1992) as Alice · Making The Witcher (2020) as Self - Queen Calanthe · Defiance (2008) as Tamara Skidelsky
Career snapshot
Ranked #5682 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1992–2026
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
The Last of the Mohicans
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
The Last of the Mohicans
Most frequent director
Agnieszka Smoczyńska
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Most common genre
Drama
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 43m
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
6.4
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
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Scarlet Letter, The Last of the Mohicans — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
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. The Scarlet Letter, The Last of the Mohicans.
Most productive era
2020s
5 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 | 6.82 films | 6.52 films | 6.04 films | 6.43 films |
| Action | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.61 film | — |
| Romance | 6.11 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Alice. 7.4 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 Narrator.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Self - Queen Calanthe
Directed by Unknown
as Tamara Skidelsky
Directed by Edward Zwick
as Leah
Directed by Ciarán Donnelly
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
Alice
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Alice gives Jodhi May a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self - Queen Calanthe
Making The Witcher (2020)
Performance score7.0
Making The Witcher asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self - Queen Calanthe is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mary Belcher
Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher (2022)
Performance score6.7
Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mary Belcher is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tamara Skidelsky
Defiance (2008)
Performance score6.7
Defiance asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tamara Skidelsky 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 Alice
Start here. The Last of the Mohicans is the clearest statement of what Jodhi May does — accessible, 112 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jodhi 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.
Defiance (2008)
Keeps the war register of The Last of the Mohicans but asks for a colder reading of it.
Making The Witcher (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Defiance — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Resurrection (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Making The Witcher — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Resurrection but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last of the Mohicans
Roland Joffé
Director
1 film together
Notably The Scarlet Letter
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Defiance
Rodrigo Cortés
Director
1 film together
Notably Down a Dark Hall
Ciarán Donnelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Resurrection
Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Director
1 film together
Notably The Silent Twins
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last of the MohicansEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DefianceCiarán Donnelly
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ResurrectionAgnieszka Smoczyńska
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Silent TwinsRoland Joffé
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Scarlet LetterRodrigo Cortés
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Down a Dark HallSix 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
The Last of the Mohicans
as Alice
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 Scarlet Letter
as Voice of Pearl (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
The Last of the Mohicans
as Alice
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Scarlet Letter
as Voice of Pearl (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Last of the Mohicans
as Alice
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. Jodhi May 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
11 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 Last of the Mohicans
as Alice
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Last of the Mohicans
as Alice
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Scarlet Letter
as Voice of Pearl (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Down a Dark Hall
as Heather Sinclair
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Last of the Mohicans
as Alice
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Warrior Queen of Jhansi
as Queen Victoria
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Warrior Queen of Jhansi
as Queen Victoria
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher
as Mary Belcher
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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