Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2997
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kaitlyn Dever works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kaitlyn Dever appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kaitlyn. Short Term 12 is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jay Duplass, Kathryn Bigelow, Dan Levy and others, Kaitlyn Dever 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.
Short Term 12 (2013) as Jayden Cole · Beautiful Boy (2018) as Lauren · Detroit (2017) as Karen
Career snapshot
Ranked #2997 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
2011–2027
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Short Term 12
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Short Term 12
Most frequent director
Kathryn Bigelow
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Kathryn Bigelow
Most common genre
Drama
15 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
6.2
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
6.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Them That Follow, Booksmart, Beautiful Boy — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.5
Across 11 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Them That Follow, Booksmart, Beautiful Boy.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.78 films | 5.57 films |
| Action | — | 0.01 film |
| Thriller | 6.12 films | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.45 films | 5.25 films |
| Crime | 6.21 film | — |
| Romance | 6.42 films | 6.82 films |
| Horror | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2011J. Edgar
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Palmer's Daughter.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2013Short Term 12
7.7 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
2027Godzilla x Kong: Supernova
The current state of the argument, as Jesse.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Jayden Cole
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton
as Rosaline
Directed by Karen Maine
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
Jayden Cole
Short Term 12 (2013)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jayden Cole gives Kaitlyn Dever a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rosaline
Rosaline (2022)
Performance score7.7
Rosaline asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rosaline is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Amy
Booksmart (2019)
Performance score7.6
Booksmart asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Amy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Brynn
No One Will Save You (2023)
Performance score7.4
No One Will Save You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Brynn 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 Jayden Cole
Start here. Short Term 12 is the clearest statement of what Kaitlyn Dever does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kaitlyn 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.
Beautiful Boy (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Short Term 12 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Booksmart (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Beautiful Boy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Rosaline (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of Booksmart but asks for a colder reading of it.
No One Will Save You (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Rosaline — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jason Reitman
Director
2 films together
Notably Men, Women & Children
Kathryn Bigelow
Director
2 films together
Notably Detroit
Jake Kasdan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Teacher
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably J. Edgar
James Ponsoldt
Director
1 film together
Notably The Spectacular Now
Destin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together
Notably Short Term 12
Lynn Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably Laggies
Olivia Wilde
Director
1 film together
Notably Booksmart
Stephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together
Notably Dear Evan Hansen
Karen Maine
Director
1 film together
Notably Rosaline
Taika Waititi
Director
1 film together
Notably Next Goal Wins
Dan Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Grief
Jay Duplass
Director
1 film together
Notably See You When I See You
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Kathryn Bigelow
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
DetroitJason Reitman
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Men, Women & ChildrenDestin Daniel Cretton
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Short Term 12Karen Maine
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RosalineOlivia Wilde
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BooksmartJames Ponsoldt
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 Spectacular NowTaika Waititi
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Next Goal WinsDan Levy
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good GriefStephen Chbosky
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dear Evan HansenClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
J. EdgarLynn Shelton
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LaggiesJake Kasdan
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad TeacherJay Duplass
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
See You When I See YouSix 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
Beautiful Boy
as Lauren
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Detroit
as Karen
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Short Term 12
as Jayden Cole
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Next Goal Wins
as Nicole (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Short Term 12
as Jayden Cole
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. Kaitlyn Dever 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.
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
15 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
Short Term 12
as Jayden Cole
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Short Term 12
as Jayden Cole
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Detroit
as Karen
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
J. Edgar
as Palmer's Daughter
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Short Term 12
as Jayden Cole
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Godzilla x Kong: Supernova
as Jesse
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Rosaline
as Rosaline
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Them That Follow
as Dilly Picket
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
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
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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