Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16032
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Judy Davis represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and Judy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Judy Davis appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Judy. Barton Fink 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 comedy, adventure, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nathalie Boltt, Justin Kurzel, Jocelyn Moorhouse and others, Judy Davis 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.
Barton Fink (1991) as Audrey Taylor · Deconstructing Harry (1997) as Lucy · The Dressmaker (2015) as Molly Dunnage
Career snapshot
Ranked #16032 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1984–2026
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Barton Fink
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Barton Fink
Most frequent director
Woody Allen
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Woody Allen
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
6.8
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
2020s
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Holy Days, Nitram — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
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
1980s
6.8
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. A Passage to India.
Most productive era
1990s
7 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.96 films | 6.71 film | 6.83 films | 6.82 films |
| Action | — | 6.71 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.62 films | — | 6.61 film | 6.91 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.04 films | 5.91 film | 6.42 films | 6.71 film |
| Crime | — | 6.53 films | — | — | 6.91 film |
| Romance | — | 7.01 film | 5.91 film | 5.81 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Adela Quested.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1991Barton Fink
7.5 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
2026Holy Days
The current state of the argument, as Sister Agnes.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Audrey Taylor
Directed by Joel Coen
as Sister Agnes
Directed by Nathalie Boltt
as Joan Frost
Directed by David Cronenberg
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
Audrey Taylor
Barton Fink (1991)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Audrey Taylor gives Judy Davis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lucy
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Performance score7.6
Deconstructing Harry asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lucy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sister Agnes
Holy Days (2026)
Performance score7.4
Holy Days asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sister Agnes is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sally
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Performance score7.4
Husbands and Wives asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sally 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 Audrey Taylor
Start here. Barton Fink is the clearest statement of what Judy Davis does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Judy 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.
Naked Lunch (1991)
Keeps the drama register of Barton Fink but asks for a colder reading of it.
Husbands and Wives (1992)
Keeps the drama register of Naked Lunch but asks for a colder reading of it.
Deconstructing Harry (1997)
Same director as Husbands and Wives, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Holy Days (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Deconstructing Harry but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Woody Allen
Director
4 films together
Notably Deconstructing Harry
David Lean
Director
1 film together
Notably A Passage to India
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably Barton Fink
David Cronenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Naked Lunch
Bob Rafelson
Director
1 film together
Notably Blood and Wine
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Absolute Power
Peyton Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably The Break-Up
Sofia Coppola
Director
1 film together
Notably Marie Antoinette
David Hare
Director
1 film together
Notably Page Eight
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Director
1 film together
Notably The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
Jocelyn Moorhouse
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dressmaker
Justin Kurzel
Director
1 film together
Notably Nitram
Nathalie Boltt
Director
1 film together
Notably Holy Days
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Woody Allen
Director
4 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Deconstructing HarryJoel Coen
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Barton FinkJocelyn Moorhouse
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DressmakerDavid Cronenberg
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Naked LunchJustin Kurzel
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NitramJean-Pierre Jeunet
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 Young and Prodigious T.S. SpivetNathalie Boltt
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Holy DaysSofia Coppola
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marie AntoinetteClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Absolute PowerDavid Hare
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Page EightDavid Lean
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Passage to IndiaPeyton Reed
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Break-UpBob Rafelson
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blood and WineSix 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
Barton Fink
as Audrey Taylor
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Husbands and Wives
as Sally
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Barton Fink
as Audrey Taylor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Page Eight
as Jill Tankard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Barton Fink
as Audrey Taylor
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. Judy Davis 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
42 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
Barton Fink
as Audrey Taylor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Nitram
as Mother
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
as G.H. Jibsen
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Page Eight
as Jill Tankard
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Absolute Power
as Gloria Russell
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Absolute Power
as Gloria Russell
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Holy Days
as Sister Agnes
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Deconstructing Harry
as Lucy
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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