Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7263
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Madelyn Cline 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.
Madelyn Cline appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Madelyn. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 romance, western, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Judd Apatow, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, Lasse Hallström and others, Madelyn Cline 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.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) as Whiskey · Boy Erased (2018) as Chloe · The Map That Leads to You (2025) as Heather Mulgrew
Career snapshot
Ranked #7263 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2018–2027
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Most frequent director
Judd Apatow
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Judd Apatow
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
6.1
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Boy Erased — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
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. Boy Erased.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 7.01 film | 5.73 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.32 films |
| Comedy | — | 3.52 films |
| Crime | — | 7.01 film |
| Romance | — | 3.32 films |
| Horror | — | 5.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
2018Boy Erased
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Chloe. 7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
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.
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 Heather Mulgrew
Directed by Lasse Hallström
as Whiskey
Directed by Rian Johnson
Directed by Judd Apatow
as Danica Richards
Directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
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
Heather Mulgrew
The Map That Leads to You (2025)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Heather Mulgrew gives Madelyn Cline a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Chloe
Boy Erased (2018)
Performance score7.1
Boy Erased asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chloe is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Whiskey
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Performance score6.9
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Whiskey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
The Comeback King
The Comeback King (2027)
Performance score6.5
The Comeback King 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 movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Heather Mulgrew
Start here. The Map That Leads to You is the clearest statement of what Madelyn Cline does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 6.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Madelyn 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.
Boy Erased (2018)
Keeps the drama register of The Map That Leads to You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Boy Erased — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)
Keeps the mystery register of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Comeback King (2027)
A deliberate change of key after I Know What You Did Last Summer — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joel Edgerton
Director
1 film together
Notably Boy Erased
James DeMonaco
Director
1 film together
Notably This Is the Night
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together
Notably The Map That Leads to You
Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably I Know What You Did Last Summer
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably The Comeback King
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Rian Johnson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Glass Onion: A Knives Out MysteryJoel Edgerton
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Boy ErasedLasse Hallström
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 Map That Leads to YouJennifer Kaytin Robinson
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Know What You Did Last SummerJames DeMonaco
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
This Is the NightJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Comeback KingSix 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
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
as Whiskey
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 Map That Leads to You
as Heather Mulgrew
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Boy Erased
as Chloe
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
as Whiskey
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Map That Leads to You
as Heather Mulgrew
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. Madelyn Cline 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
4 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
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
as Whiskey
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
as Whiskey
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Map That Leads to You
as Heather Mulgrew
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
as Whiskey
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
as Whiskey
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Map That Leads to You
as Heather Mulgrew
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Map That Leads to You
as Heather Mulgrew
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Boy Erased
as Chloe
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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