Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1738
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Reed Birney represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Reed is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Reed Birney appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Reed. Changeling 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, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for fantasy, drama, western. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Noelle P. Wilson, Kevin Costner, Santino Fontana and others, Reed Birney 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.
Changeling (2008) as Mayor Cryer · Mass (2021) as Richard · The Menu (2022) as Richard
Career snapshot
Ranked #1738 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1985–2025
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Changeling
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Changeling
Most frequent director
Noelle P. Wilson
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Noelle P. Wilson
Most common genre
Drama
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 32m
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
6.4
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
2000s
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Changeling, The Ten, Uptown Girls — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Crimewave.
Most productive era
2020s
11 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 | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.32 films | 6.41 film | 4.37 films |
| Action | — | — | — | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 4.03 films |
| Comedy | 5.51 film | 5.92 films | 6.22 films | 7.02 films |
| Crime | 5.51 film | 7.61 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
| Horror | 5.51 film | — | — | 6.43 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1985Crimewave
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Vic Ajax.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2008Changeling
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
2025Live Long
The current state of the argument, as Dad.
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 Mayor Cryer
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Richard
Directed by Mark Mylod
as Peter Bloom
Directed by Unknown
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
Richard
Mass (2021)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Richard gives Reed Birney a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mayor Cryer
Changeling (2008)
Performance score7.4
Changeling asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mayor Cryer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Richard
The Menu (2022)
Performance score7.1
The Menu asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Richard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Henry Bennett
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 (2024)
Performance score6.9
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Henry Bennett 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 Richard
Start here. Mass is the clearest statement of what Reed Birney does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Reed 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.
Changeling (2008)
Keeps the drama register of Mass but asks for a colder reading of it.
Strawberry Mansion (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Changeling — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Menu (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Strawberry Mansion — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Menu — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sam Raimi
Director
1 film together
Notably Crimewave
Boaz Yakin
Director
1 film together
Notably Uptown Girls
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ten
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Changeling
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Morning Glory
Scott Coffey
Director
1 film together
Notably Adult World
Radha Blank
Director
1 film together
Notably The Forty-Year-Old Version
Craig Zobel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hunt
Fran Kranz
Director
1 film together
Notably Mass
Mark Mylod
Director
1 film together
Notably The Menu
Bess Wohl
Director
1 film together
Notably Baby Ruby
Santino Fontana
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Wish
Kevin Costner
Director
1 film together
Notably Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
Noelle P. Wilson
Director
1 film together
Notably Live Long
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ChangelingFran Kranz
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MassMark Mylod
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MenuKevin Costner
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2Boaz Yakin
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Uptown GirlsCraig Zobel
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HuntRadha Blank
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Forty-Year-Old VersionRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Morning GloryScott Coffey
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Adult WorldSam Raimi
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CrimewaveBess Wohl
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Baby RubyDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The TenNoelle P. Wilson
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live LongSantino Fontana
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death WishSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
1 win · 1 nomination
1 win · 1 nomination · latest 2016
as Actor
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Changeling
as Mayor Cryer
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Morning Glory
as Governor Willis
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Changeling
as Mayor Cryer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
as Henry Bennett
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mass
as Richard
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. Reed Birney 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
40 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
10 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
Changeling
as Mayor Cryer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Changeling
as Mayor Cryer
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Morning Glory
as Governor Willis
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Changeling
as Mayor Cryer
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Hunt
as Pop
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Hunt
as Pop
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Forty-Year-Old Version
as J. Whitman
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Hunt
as Pop
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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Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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