Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7521
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Omari Hardwick 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.
Omari Hardwick appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Omari. Phels High is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 mystery, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Olatunde Osunsanmi, Niki Caro, Anton Cropper and others, Omari Hardwick 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.
Phels High (2023) as Principal Floyd · Kick-Ass (2010) as Sergeant Marcus Williams · Gridiron Gang (2006) as Free
Career snapshot
Ranked #7521 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2005–2025
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Phels High
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Phels High
Most frequent director
Olatunde Osunsanmi
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Olatunde Osunsanmi
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. American Skin, Sorry to Bother You, Nobody's Fool — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
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. Miracle at St. Anna, Gridiron Gang, The Guardian.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.83 films | 7.02 films | 8.42 films |
| Action | 7.11 film | 6.82 films | 5.83 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.01 film | 8.32 films |
| Comedy | 6.31 film | 6.43 films | 6.51 film |
| Crime | 7.11 film | 6.94 films | 6.21 film |
| Romance | 6.31 film | 6.11 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005Beauty Shop
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Byron.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Phels High
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Alok Sahar.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Principal Floyd
Directed by Unknown
as Omar 'Derwood' Scott
Directed by Nate Parker
as Kutcher
Directed by Ric Roman Waugh
as Cruise
Directed by Niki Caro
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
Principal Floyd
Phels High (2023)
Performance score9.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Principal Floyd gives Omari Hardwick a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Omar 'Derwood' Scott
American Skin (2019)
Performance score7.6
American Skin asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Omar 'Derwood' Scott is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kutcher
Shot Caller (2017)
Performance score7.4
Shot Caller asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kutcher is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jonathan Keyes
Xeno (2025)
Performance score7.1
Xeno asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jonathan Keyes 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 Principal Floyd
Start here. Phels High is the clearest statement of what Omari Hardwick does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Omari 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.
Shot Caller (2017)
Keeps the drama register of Phels High but asks for a colder reading of it.
American Skin (2019)
Keeps the crime register of Shot Caller but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Mother (2023)
A deliberate change of key after American Skin — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Xeno (2025)
A deliberate change of key after The Mother — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bille Woodruff
Director
1 film together
Notably Beauty Shop
Andrew Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably The Guardian
Phil Joanou
Director
1 film together
Notably Gridiron Gang
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Miracle at St. Anna
Joe Carnahan
Director
1 film together
Notably The A-Team
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together
Notably Kick-Ass
Ric Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together
Notably Shot Caller
Tyler Perry
Director
1 film together
Notably Nobody's Fool
Boots Riley
Director
1 film together
Notably Sorry to Bother You
Nate Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably American Skin
Zack Snyder
Director
1 film together
Notably Army of the Dead
Anton Cropper
Director
1 film together
Notably Fantasy Football
Niki Caro
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mother
Olatunde Osunsanmi
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: Section 31
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kick-AssPhil Joanou
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gridiron GangAndrew Davis
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 GuardianNate Parker
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American SkinRic Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shot CallerBoots Riley
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sorry to Bother YouNiki Caro
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MotherAnton Cropper
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fantasy FootballJoe Carnahan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The A-TeamBille Woodruff
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beauty ShopZack Snyder
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Army of the DeadTyler Perry
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nobody's FoolSpike 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
Miracle at St. AnnaOlatunde Osunsanmi
Director
1 film together · 4.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: Section 31Six 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
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Gridiron Gang
as Free
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
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. Omari Hardwick 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
20 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
7 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
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Xeno
as Jonathan Keyes
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Phels High
as Principal Floyd
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Guardian
as Carl Billings
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Shot Caller
as Kutcher
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Xeno
as Jonathan Keyes
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: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Omari Hardwick 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
