Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4633
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Reno Wilson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Reno is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Reno Wilson appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Reno. Above the Line is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 action, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ron Oliver, Michael Bay, Brian Taylor and others, Reno Wilson 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.
Above the Line (2025) as Ghost · Born a Champion (2021) as Terry Pittman · Fallen (1998) as Mike
Career snapshot
Ranked #4633 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1998–2025
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Above the Line
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Above the Line
Most frequent director
Michael Bay
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Michael Bay
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
2020s
7.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Above the Line, Born a Champion — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Mighty Joe Young, Fallen.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | — | 4.11 film | 7.22 films |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.33 films | 6.02 films | 7.22 films |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 6.42 films | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.81 film | 7.41 film |
| Crime | 6.81 film | 6.42 films | — | 7.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Mighty Joe Young
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Poacher.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2025Above the Line
7.4 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 Ghost.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Ghost
Directed by Unknown
as Terry Pittman
Directed by Unknown
as Mike
Directed by Gregory Hoblit
as Orlando
Directed by Brian Taylor
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
Ghost
Above the Line (2025)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ghost gives Reno Wilson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Terry Pittman
Born a Champion (2021)
Performance score6.8
Born a Champion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Terry Pittman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mike
Fallen (1998)
Performance score6.7
Fallen asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mike is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Orlando
Crank (2006)
Performance score6.6
Crank asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Orlando 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 Ghost
Start here. Above the Line is the clearest statement of what Reno Wilson does — accessible, 90 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Reno 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.
Fallen (1998)
Keeps the crime register of Above the Line but asks for a colder reading of it.
Crank (2006)
Keeps the crime register of Fallen but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bolden (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Crank — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Born a Champion (2021)
Same director as Bolden, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Bay
Director
3 films together
Notably Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Brian Taylor
Director
2 films together
Notably Crank
Gregory Hoblit
Director
1 film together
Notably Fallen
Ron Underwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Mighty Joe Young
Ron Oliver
Director
1 film together
Notably Grand-Daddy Day Care
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Bay
Director
3 films together · 6.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Transformers: Revenge of the FallenBrian Taylor
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
CrankGregory Hoblit
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FallenRon Underwood
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mighty Joe YoungRon Oliver
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grand-Daddy Day CareSix 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
Above the Line
as Ghost
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Bolden
as Louis Armstrong
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Above the Line
as Ghost
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transformers: The Last Knight
as Mohawk / Sqweeks (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Above the Line
as Ghost
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. Reno Wilson 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
27 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in action, 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
Fallen
as Mike
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Above the Line
as Ghost
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bolden
as Louis Armstrong
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fallen
as Mike
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Above the Line
as Ghost
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers: Age of Extinction
as Brains (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Above the Line
as Ghost
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Transformers: The Last Knight
as Mohawk / Sqweeks (voice)
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
Michael Caine
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
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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