Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5192
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kristen Holden-Ried represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Kristen is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kristen Holden-Ried appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kristen. Plan C is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 comedy, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Scott Cavalheiro, Valerie Buhagiar, Alan Ritchson and others, Kristen Holden-Ried 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.
Plan C (2026) as Dr. Buddy Gillard · The Dogs (2025) · K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) as Anton
Career snapshot
Ranked #5192 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2000–2026
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Plan C
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Plan C
Most frequent director
Scott Cavalheiro
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Scott Cavalheiro
Most common genre
Thriller
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
6.6
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
2020s
6.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Plan C, The Dogs, Dark Web: Cicada 3301 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.5
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. K-19: The Widowmaker, Gossip.
Most productive era
2020s
4 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 | 6.61 film | — | 3.61 film |
| Action | — | 6.31 film | 5.91 film |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | — | 7.53 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 8.02 films |
| Crime | — | — | 10.01 film |
| Horror | — | 6.31 film | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2000Gossip
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Bruce.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Plan C
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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 Dr. Buddy Gillard.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
Directed by Scott Cavalheiro
Directed by Valerie Buhagiar
as Anton
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
as Phillip Dubois
Directed by Alan Ritchson
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
Dr. Buddy Gillard
Plan C (2026)
Performance score9.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dr. Buddy Gillard gives Kristen Holden-Ried a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
The Dogs
The Dogs (2025)
Performance score7.0
The Dogs asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Anton
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Performance score6.6
K-19: The Widowmaker asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Anton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Phillip Dubois
Dark Web: Cicada 3301 (2021)
Performance score6.5
Dark Web: Cicada 3301 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Phillip Dubois 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 Dr. Buddy Gillard
Start here. Plan C is the clearest statement of what Kristen Holden-Ried does — accessible, 89 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kristen 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.
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
Keeps the thriller register of Plan C but asks for a colder reading of it.
Lie Exposed (2020)
Keeps the drama register of K-19: The Widowmaker but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dark Web: Cicada 3301 (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Lie Exposed — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Dogs (2025)
Keeps the thriller register of Dark Web: Cicada 3301 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Davis Guggenheim
Director
1 film together
Notably Gossip
Kathryn Bigelow
Director
1 film together
Notably K-19: The Widowmaker
Björn Stein
Director
1 film together
Notably Underworld: Awakening
Jerry Ciccoritti
Director
1 film together
Notably Lie Exposed
Alan Ritchson
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Web: Cicada 3301
Valerie Buhagiar
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dogs
Scott Cavalheiro
Director
1 film together
Notably Plan C
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Scott Cavalheiro
Director
1 film together · 10.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Plan CValerie Buhagiar
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 DogsKathryn Bigelow
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
K-19: The WidowmakerBjörn Stein
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Underworld: AwakeningAlan Ritchson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark Web: Cicada 3301Davis Guggenheim
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GossipJerry Ciccoritti
Director
1 film together · 3.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lie ExposedSix 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
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Lie Exposed
as Tom
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
K-19: The Widowmaker
as Anton
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
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. Kristen Holden-Ried 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
26 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Lie Exposed
as Tom
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Dogs
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Underworld: Awakening
as Quint Lane
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Plan C
as Dr. Buddy Gillard
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Dark Web: Cicada 3301
as Phillip Dubois
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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