Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8570
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Moemi Katayama 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.
Moemi Katayama appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Moemi. Shoplifters is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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 fantasy, music, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Smith, Yuichi Satoh, Hideo Jojo and others, Moemi Katayama 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.
Shoplifters (2018) as Nozomi Hojo · Go Away, Ultramarine (2019) as Tokito · S-friends: Hatsukoi (2023) as Hanae Shindo
Career snapshot
Ranked #8570 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2018–2024
Career length
6 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Shoplifters
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Shoplifters
Most frequent director
Hideo Jojo
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Hideo Jojo
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
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
2020s
6.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Oshi no Ko -The Final Act-, City Hunter, S-friends: Hatsukoi — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.3
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.3
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. Not in Textbooks 5, Go Away, Ultramarine, Shoplifters.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 5.03 films | 6.45 films |
| Action | — | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | 7.61 film | 5.31 film |
| Comedy | 0.01 film | 6.22 films |
| Crime | 7.61 film | 5.31 film |
| Romance | 0.01 film | 6.83 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018Shoplifters
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Nozomi Hojo. 7.6 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
2024City Hunter
The current state of the argument, as Sasori.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Nozomi Hojo
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
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
Hanae Shindo
S-friends: Hatsukoi (2023)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hanae Shindo gives Moemi Katayama a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Hanae Shindo
Sefure no Hinkaku: Ketsui (2023)
Performance score7.4
Sefure no Hinkaku: Ketsui asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hanae Shindo is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Nozomi Hojo
Shoplifters (2018)
Performance score7.4
Shoplifters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nozomi Hojo is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tokito
Go Away, Ultramarine (2019)
Performance score7.2
Go Away, Ultramarine asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tokito 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 Hanae Shindo
Start here. S-friends: Hatsukoi is the clearest statement of what Moemi Katayama does — accessible, 99 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Moemi 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.
Shoplifters (2018)
Keeps the drama register of S-friends: Hatsukoi but asks for a colder reading of it.
Go Away, Ultramarine (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Shoplifters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sefure no Hinkaku: Ketsui (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Go Away, Ultramarine but asks for a colder reading of it.
Oshi no Ko -The Final Act- (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Sefure no Hinkaku: Ketsui but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Hideo Jojo
Director
2 films together
Notably S-friends: Hatsukoi
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together
Notably Shoplifters
Masaharu Take
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gun 2020
Hisashi Kimura
Director
1 film together
Notably 99.9 Criminal Lawyer: SP
Yuichi Satoh
Director
1 film together
Notably City Hunter
Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Oshi no Ko -The Final Act-
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hideo Jojo
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
S-friends: HatsukoiHirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShopliftersYuichi Satoh
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City HunterSmith
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Oshi no Ko -The Final Act-Hisashi Kimura
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
99.9 Criminal Lawyer: SPMasaharu Take
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Gun 2020Six 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
Shoplifters
as Nozomi Hojo
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
S-friends: Hatsukoi
as Hanae Shindo
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Shoplifters
as Nozomi Hojo
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
99.9 Criminal Lawyer: SP
as Secretary
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
S-friends: Hatsukoi
as Hanae Shindo
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. Moemi Katayama 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
8 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
Go Away, Ultramarine
as Tokito
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shoplifters
as Nozomi Hojo
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Oshi no Ko -The Final Act-
as Himekawa Airi
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Go Away, Ultramarine
as Tokito
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Shoplifters
as Nozomi Hojo
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
City Hunter
as Sasori
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shoplifters
as Nozomi Hojo
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Go Away, Ultramarine
as Tokito
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Moemi Katayama performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
