Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1175
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Michael Rosenbaum represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Michael is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Michael Rosenbaum appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Michael. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. 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 James Gunn, Brandon Vietti, Bruce Timm and others, Michael Rosenbaum 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.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) as Martinex · Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) as Martinex · Superman (2025) as Raptor Guard #1
Career snapshot
Ranked #1175 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1997–2025
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Most frequent director
James Gunn
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With James Gunn
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
6.7
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. Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 5 catalogue films 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
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Urban Legend, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | 6.91 film | — | 4.91 film |
| Action | — | — | 7.04 films | 7.34 films |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 4.91 film |
| Comedy | — | 5.91 film | 5.71 film | — |
| Crime | 6.31 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.91 film | 5.71 film | — |
| Horror | 5.71 film | — | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Where our catalogue meets this career, as George Tucker.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
8.1 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
2025Superman
The current state of the argument, as Raptor Guard #1.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Martinex
Directed by James Gunn
as Martinex
Directed by James Gunn
as Flash (voice)
Directed by Lauren Montgomery
as Raptor Guard #1
Directed by James Gunn
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
Martinex
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Martinex gives Michael Rosenbaum a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Martinex
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Performance score7.6
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Martinex is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Flash (voice)
Justice League: Doom (2012)
Performance score7.5
Justice League: Doom asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Flash (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Raptor Guard #1
Superman (2025)
Performance score7.3
Superman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Raptor Guard #1 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 Martinex
Start here. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the clearest statement of what Michael Rosenbaum does — accessible, 150 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Michael 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.
Justice League: Doom (2012)
Keeps the action register of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Keeps the action register of Justice League: Doom but asks for a colder reading of it.
Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Superman (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
James Gunn
Director
3 films together
Notably Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Lauren Montgomery
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League: Doom
Dax Shepard
Director
1 film together
Notably Hit & Run
Ethan Spaulding
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Brent Hodge
Director
1 film together
Notably Chris Farley: Anything for a Laugh
Bruce Timm
Director
1 film together
Notably DC Showcase: The Phantom Stranger
Brandon Vietti
Director
1 film together
Notably DC Showcase - Batman: Death in the Family
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
James Gunn
Director
3 films together · 7.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3Lauren Montgomery
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League: DoomBrent Hodge
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chris Farley: Anything for a LaughBrandon Vietti
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DC Showcase - Batman: Death in the FamilyEthan Spaulding
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League: Throne of AtlantisBruce Timm
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DC Showcase: The Phantom StrangerClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Midnight in the Garden of Good and EvilDax Shepard
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hit & RunSix 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
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sweet November
as Brandon / Brandy
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Superman
as Raptor Guard #1
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
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. Michael Rosenbaum 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
28 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in action, 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
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sweet November
as Brandon / Brandy
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
as George Tucker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
as Martinex
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Sweet November
as Brandon / Brandy
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
as Martinex
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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