Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3199
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Molly Gordon represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 25 years in, and Molly is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Molly Gordon appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Molly. The Sheep Detectives is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 mystery, comedy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kyle Balda, Stephanie Allynne, Molly Gordon and others, Molly Gordon 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.
The Sheep Detectives (2026) as Rebecca Hampstead · I Am Sam (2001) as Callie · Rising (2020) as Michelle
Career snapshot
Ranked #3199 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2001–2026
Career length
25 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Sheep Detectives
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
The Sheep Detectives
Most frequent director
Jessie Nelson
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jessie Nelson
Most common genre
Comedy
12 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
6.6
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
6.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Sheep Detectives, Oh, Hi!, Am I OK? — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.8
Across 8 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Bewitched, I Am Sam.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.61 film | 6.01 film | 6.82 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.31 film |
| Comedy | 5.11 film | 6.54 films | 6.77 films |
| Romance | 5.11 film | — | 6.34 films |
| Horror | — | — | 7.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2001I Am Sam
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Callie.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
7.8 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. The current state of the argument, as Rebecca Hampstead.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Rebecca Hampstead
Directed by Kyle Balda
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
Rebecca Hampstead
The Sheep Detectives (2026)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Rebecca Hampstead gives Molly Gordon a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Michelle
Rising (2020)
Performance score7.7
Rising asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Michelle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Maya
Shiva Baby (2021)
Performance score7.5
Shiva Baby asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maya is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Callie
I Am Sam (2001)
Performance score7.4
I Am Sam asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Callie 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 Rebecca Hampstead
Start here. The Sheep Detectives is the clearest statement of what Molly Gordon does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Molly 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.
I Am Sam (2001)
A deliberate change of key after The Sheep Detectives — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Rising (2020)
A deliberate change of key after I Am Sam — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Rising — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Shiva Baby (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of The Broken Hearts Gallery but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jessie Nelson
Director
2 films together
Notably I Am Sam
Nora Ephron
Director
1 film together
Notably Bewitched
Ben Falcone
Director
1 film together
Notably Life of the Party
Olivia Wilde
Director
1 film together
Notably Booksmart
Gene Stupnitsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Boys
Natalie Krinsky
Director
1 film together
Notably The Broken Hearts Gallery
Molly Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Theater Camp
Stephanie Allynne
Director
1 film together
Notably Am I OK?
Kyle Balda
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sheep Detectives
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jessie Nelson
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
I Am SamKyle Balda
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sheep DetectivesNatalie Krinsky
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Broken Hearts GalleryOlivia Wilde
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BooksmartGene Stupnitsky
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good BoysMolly Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Theater CampStephanie Allynne
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Am I OK?Ben Falcone
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Life of the PartyNora Ephron
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BewitchedSix 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
I Am Sam
as Callie
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Am I OK?
as Kat
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
I Am Sam
as Callie
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bewitched
as Trick-or-Treater
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Sheep Detectives
as Rebecca Hampstead
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. Molly Gordon 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
25 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
12 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
The Sheep Detectives
as Rebecca Hampstead
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Sheep Detectives
as Rebecca Hampstead
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Am I OK?
as Kat
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Sheep Detectives
as Rebecca Hampstead
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Sheep Detectives
as Rebecca Hampstead
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Sheep Detectives
as Rebecca Hampstead
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Am I OK?
as Kat
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Am I OK?
as Kat
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
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Reference
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