Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3452
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Patti LuPone represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 47 years in, and Patti is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Patti LuPone appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Patti. On Broadway is the clearest case: a film rated 8.7 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 documentary, comedy, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ari Aster, Paul Feig, Lonny Price and others, Patti LuPone 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.
On Broadway (2019) as Self (archive footage) · Steven Universe: The Movie (2019) as Yellow Diamond (voice) · Last Christmas (2019) as Joyce
Career snapshot
Ranked #3452 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1979–2026
Career length
47 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.7
On Broadway
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
On Broadway
Most frequent director
Paul Feig
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Paul Feig
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
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
6.8
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
7.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Steven Universe: The Movie, On Broadway, Cliffs of Freedom — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.4
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. 1941.
Most productive era
2010s
5 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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.12 films | 6.51 film | 6.13 films | 7.22 films | — |
| Action | 6.11 film | — | — | 6.31 film | 6.11 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.01 film | 6.51 film | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | — | — | 6.31 film | 7.21 film | 4.63 films |
| Crime | — | 7.01 film | 6.51 film | 6.02 films | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | — | — | 7.21 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
19791941
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Lydia Hedberg.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019On Broadway
8.7 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
2026TOVAH
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Self (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
as Yellow Diamond (voice)
Directed by Rebecca Sugar
as Mona Wassermann
Directed by Ari Aster
as Joyce
Directed by Paul Feig
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
Self (archive footage)
On Broadway (2019)
Performance score8.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self (archive footage) gives Patti LuPone a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Yellow Diamond (voice)
Steven Universe: The Movie (2019)
Performance score7.5
Steven Universe: The Movie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yellow Diamond (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Florine Werthan
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
Performance score7.3
Driving Miss Daisy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Florine Werthan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mona Wassermann
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Performance score7.1
Beau Is Afraid asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mona Wassermann 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 Self (archive footage)
Start here. On Broadway is the clearest statement of what Patti LuPone does — accessible, 84 minutes, and rated 8.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Patti 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.
Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
A deliberate change of key after On Broadway — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Steven Universe: The Movie (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Driving Miss Daisy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Last Christmas (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Steven Universe: The Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Beau Is Afraid (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Last Christmas but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Mamet
Director
2 films together
Notably Heist
Paul Feig
Director
2 films together
Notably Last Christmas
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably 1941
Peter Weir
Director
1 film together
Notably Witness
Bruce Beresford
Director
1 film together
Notably Driving Miss Daisy
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Summer of Sam
Michael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably City by the Sea
Taylor Hackford
Director
1 film together
Notably Parker
Van Ling
Director
1 film together
Notably Cliffs of Freedom
Rebecca Sugar
Director
1 film together
Notably Steven Universe: The Movie
Lonny Price
Director
1 film together
Notably Show of Titles
Ari Aster
Director
1 film together
Notably Beau Is Afraid
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Feig
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Last ChristmasDavid Mamet
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
HeistRebecca Sugar
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Steven Universe: The MovieBruce Beresford
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Driving Miss DaisyVan Ling
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cliffs of FreedomPeter Weir
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WitnessAri Aster
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beau Is AfraidSpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Summer of SamTaylor Hackford
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ParkerSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
1941Michael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City by the SeaLonny Price
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Show of TitlesSix 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
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Last Christmas
as Joyce
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
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. Patti LuPone 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
47 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
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
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Last Christmas
as Joyce
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
City by the Sea
as Maggie
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
On Broadway
as Self (archive footage)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Heist
as Betty Croft
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Last Christmas
as Joyce
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
1941
as Lydia Hedberg
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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