Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3782
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Megalyn Echikunwoke 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.
Megalyn Echikunwoke appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Megalyn. Emily the Criminal is the clearest case: a film rated 6.7 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, drama, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rob Burnett, Sarah Adina Smith, Nisha Ganatra and others, Megalyn Echikunwoke 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.
Emily the Criminal (2022) as Liz · Late Night (2019) as Robin · Night School (2018) as Lisa
Career snapshot
Ranked #3782 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2012–2026
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.7
Emily the Criminal
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.7
Emily the Criminal
Most frequent director
Rob Burnett
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Rob Burnett
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 28m
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
5.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Late Night, Night School, CHiPs — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
5.9
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.9
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. Late Night, Night School, CHiPs.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 6.03 films | 3.42 films |
| Action | 5.72 films | — |
| Thriller | 5.31 film | 5.73 films |
| Comedy | 6.05 films | 2.12 films |
| Crime | 6.11 film | 6.71 film |
| Romance | 5.51 film | — |
| Horror | — | 5.22 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Rose.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
6.7 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
2026In Memoriam
The current state of the argument, as Regina.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Esme Rawls
Directed by Unknown
as Regina
Directed by Rob Burnett
as Birth Doula
Directed by Sarah Adina Smith
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
Liz
Emily the Criminal (2022)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Liz gives Megalyn Echikunwoke a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Esme Rawls
Blood Moon (2021)
Performance score6.7
Blood Moon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Esme Rawls is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Regina
In Memoriam (2026)
Performance score6.5
In Memoriam asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Regina is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kiara
Stay (2025)
Performance score6.5
Stay asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kiara 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 Liz
Start here. Emily the Criminal is the clearest statement of what Megalyn Echikunwoke does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 6.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Megalyn 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.
Blood Moon (2021)
Same director as Emily the Criminal, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Drop (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Blood Moon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Stay (2025)
A deliberate change of key after The Drop — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
In Memoriam (2026)
A deliberate change of key after Stay — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Whit Stillman
Director
1 film together
Notably Damsels in Distress
Lorene Scafaria
Director
1 film together
Notably The Meddler
Dax Shepard
Director
1 film together
Notably CHiPs
Malcolm D. Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Night School
Nisha Ganatra
Director
1 film together
Notably Late Night
Sarah Adina Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably The Drop
Rob Burnett
Director
1 film together
Notably In Memoriam
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Nisha Ganatra
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Late NightMalcolm D. Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night SchoolDax Shepard
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CHiPsLorene Scafaria
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MeddlerWhit Stillman
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Damsels in DistressSarah Adina Smith
Director
1 film together · 4.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DropRob Burnett
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In MemoriamSix 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
Emily the Criminal
as Liz
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Damsels in Distress
as Rose
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Emily the Criminal
as Liz
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
CHiPs
as Patricia Eerly
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Emily the Criminal
as Liz
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. Megalyn Echikunwoke 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.
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
Emily the Criminal
as Liz
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Emily the Criminal
as Liz
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Damsels in Distress
as Rose
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Emily the Criminal
as Liz
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
CHiPs
as Patricia Eerly
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
CHiPs
as Patricia Eerly
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Damsels in Distress
as Rose
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Meddler
as Elise
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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