Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3727
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Mary is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mary. Scarface is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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 documentary, action, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Wolfgang Petersen, Kevin Reynolds, Michael Apted and others, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio 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.
Scarface (1983) as Gina · The King of Comedy (1982) as Crowd Extra (uncredited) · The Abyss (1989) as Lindsey Brigman
Career snapshot
Ranked #3727 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1982–2019
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
Scarface
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Scarface
Most frequent director
Martin Scorsese
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Martin Scorsese
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
2h 8m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
6.9
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
1980s
7.5 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. The Abyss, The Color of Money, Scarface — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.5
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. The Abyss, The Color of Money, Scarface.
Most productive era
1980s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.63 films | 6.72 films | 6.51 film | — |
| Action | 8.31 film | 6.91 film | 6.51 film | — |
| Thriller | 7.31 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.61 film | — | — | — |
| Crime | 8.31 film | 6.41 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Crowd Extra (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1983Scarface
8.3 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
2019Alan Pakula: Going for Truth
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Gina
Directed by Brian De Palma
as Lindsey Brigman
Directed by James Cameron
as Crowd Extra (uncredited)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Marian
Directed by Kevin Reynolds
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
Gina
Scarface (1983)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gina gives Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lindsey Brigman
The Abyss (1989)
Performance score7.6
The Abyss asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lindsey Brigman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Crowd Extra (uncredited)
The King of Comedy (1982)
Performance score7.4
The King of Comedy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Crowd Extra (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Marian
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
Performance score7.3
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marian 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 Gina
Start here. Scarface is the clearest statement of what Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio does — accessible, 170 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mary 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.
The King of Comedy (1982)
Keeps the drama register of Scarface but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Color of Money (1986)
Same director as The King of Comedy, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Abyss (1989)
A deliberate change of key after The Color of Money — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
Keeps the adventure register of The Abyss but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Scorsese
Director
2 films together
Notably The King of Comedy
Brian De Palma
Director
1 film together
Notably Scarface
James Cameron
Director
1 film together
Notably The Abyss
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably Class Action
Kevin Reynolds
Director
1 film together
Notably Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Wolfgang Petersen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Perfect Storm
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Scorsese
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The King of ComedyBrian De Palma
Director
1 film together · 8.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ScarfaceJames Cameron
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AbyssKevin Reynolds
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Robin Hood: Prince of ThievesWolfgang Petersen
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Perfect StormMichael Apted
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Class ActionSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
0 wins · 2 nominations
No wins yet · 1 nomination
as Actor
No wins yet · 1 nomination
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Scarface
as Gina
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 Color of Money
as Carmen
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Scarface
as Gina
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The King of Comedy
as Crowd Extra (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Scarface
as Gina
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. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio 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
37 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
6 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
Scarface
as Gina
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Scarface
as Gina
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Color of Money
as Carmen
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Scarface
as Gina
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Scarface
as Gina
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Perfect Storm
as Linda Greenlaw
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Class Action
as Maggie Ward
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Scarface
as Gina
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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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
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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: action and adventure
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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