Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3495
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Justina Machado represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Justina is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Justina Machado appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Justina. Swapped is the clearest case: a film rated 8.6 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 fantasy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nathan Greno, Mary Angélica Molina, John Donkin and others, Justina Machado 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.
Swapped (2026) as Calli (voice) · Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter (2022) as Self · Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It (2021) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #3495 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.6
Swapped
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.9
Swapped
Most frequent director
Nathan Greno
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Nathan Greno
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 27m
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
2020s
6.9 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Swapped, Fernanda, The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.9
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
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. The Accidental Husband, Final Destination 2, Dragonfly.
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 | 6.82 films | 6.71 film | 6.52 films |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 5.61 film | 6.11 film | 6.75 films |
| Romance | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | 6.31 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2001A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Assistant.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Swapped
8.6 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. The current state of the argument, as Calli (voice).
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.
15 of 15 films
as Calli (voice)
Directed by Nathan Greno
as Self
Directed by Unknown
as Sylvie
Directed by Unknown
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
Calli (voice)
Swapped (2026)
Performance score8.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Calli (voice) gives Justina Machado a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self
Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter (2022)
Performance score7.8
Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It (2021)
Performance score7.5
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Becky
All Together Now (2020)
Performance score7.1
All Together Now asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Becky 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 Calli (voice)
Start here. Swapped is the clearest statement of what Justina Machado does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 8.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Justina 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.
Family Pictures (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Swapped — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
All Together Now (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Family Pictures but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It (2021)
A deliberate change of key after All Together Now — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Norman Lear: 100 Years of Music and Laughter (2022)
Same director as Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Dragonfly
David R. Ellis
Director
1 film together
Notably Final Destination 2
Griffin Dunne
Director
1 film together
Notably The Accidental Husband
Andy Fisher
Director
1 film together
Notably Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"
Brett Haley
Director
1 film together
Notably All Together Now
Tony Cervone
Director
1 film together
Notably Scoob!
Elisabeth Röhm
Director
1 film together
Notably Switched Before Birth
Kirk R. Thatcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Muppets Haunted Mansion
John Donkin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild
Mary Angélica Molina
Director
1 film together
Notably Fernanda
Nathan Greno
Director
1 film together
Notably Swapped
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Nathan Greno
Director
1 film together · 8.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SwappedSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A.I. Artificial IntelligenceTony Cervone
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scoob!Brett Haley
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Together NowJohn Donkin
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 Ice Age Adventures of Buck WildTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DragonflyKirk R. Thatcher
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Muppets Haunted MansionElisabeth Röhm
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Switched Before BirthDavid R. Ellis
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Final Destination 2Andy Fisher
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live in Front of a Studio Audience: "All in the Family" and "Good Times"Griffin Dunne
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Accidental HusbandMary Angélica Molina
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FernandaSix 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
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Swapped
as Calli (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
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
as Assistant
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
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. Justina Machado 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
25 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
7 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
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Scoob!
as Jamie Rivera (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Swapped
as Calli (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Dragonfly
as nurse
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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