Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#297
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Robin Tunney represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 34 years in, and Robin is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Robin Tunney appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robin. Ugly Cry is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 comedy, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Emily Robinson, Tim Hunter, Angelo Pizzo and others, Robin Tunney 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.
Ugly Cry (2026) as Valerie · My All American (2015) as Gloria Steinmark · The Craft (1996) as Sarah
Career snapshot
Ranked #297 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1992–2026
Career length
34 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Ugly Cry
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
My All American
Most frequent director
Andrew Fleming
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Andrew Fleming
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.5
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
1990s
6.4 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. End of Days, The Craft, Empire Records — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.4
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.3
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. End of Days, The Craft, Empire Records.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | 6.03 films | 7.01 film | 5.71 film |
| Action | 6.31 film | 5.63 films | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.43 films | 4.81 film | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | 6.22 films | 5.52 films | — | 6.52 films |
| Crime | — | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | 6.02 films | — | 5.91 film |
| Horror | 6.52 films | 5.01 film | — | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1992Encino Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ella.
Career peak
1996The Craft
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2015My All American
7.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026By Design
The current state of the argument, as Irene.
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 Gloria Steinmark
Directed by Angelo Pizzo
as Sarah
Directed by Andrew Fleming
as Valerie
Directed by Emily Robinson
as Christine York
Directed by Peter Hyams
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
Gloria Steinmark
My All American (2015)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Gloria Steinmark gives Robin Tunney a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sarah
The Craft (1996)
Performance score7.4
The Craft asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sarah is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Valerie
Ugly Cry (2026)
Performance score7.1
Ugly Cry asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Valerie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Laura
The Burning Plain (2008)
Performance score6.8
The Burning Plain asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Laura 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 Gloria Steinmark
Start here. My All American is the clearest statement of what Robin Tunney does — accessible, 118 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Robin 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.
The Craft (1996)
Keeps the drama register of My All American but asks for a colder reading of it.
End of Days (1999)
Keeps the horror register of The Craft but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Burning Plain (2008)
A deliberate change of key after End of Days — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ugly Cry (2026)
A deliberate change of key after The Burning Plain — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Andrew Fleming
Director
2 films together
Notably The Craft
Les Mayfield
Director
1 film together
Notably Encino Man
Allan Moyle
Director
1 film together
Notably Empire Records
Peter Hyams
Director
1 film together
Notably End of Days
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Supernova
Martin Campbell
Director
1 film together
Notably Vertical Limit
Paul Abascal
Director
1 film together
Notably Paparazzi
Allen Coulter
Director
1 film together
Notably Hollywoodland
Angelo Pizzo
Director
1 film together
Notably My All American
Tim Hunter
Director
1 film together
Notably Looking Glass
Emily Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Ugly Cry
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Andrew Fleming
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The CraftEmily Robinson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ugly CryAngelo Pizzo
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My All AmericanAllan Moyle
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Empire RecordsPeter Hyams
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
End of DaysAllen Coulter
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HollywoodlandMartin Campbell
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Vertical LimitLes Mayfield
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Encino ManPaul Abascal
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PaparazziWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SupernovaTim Hunter
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Looking GlassSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
1 win
1 win · latest 1997
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
My All American
as Gloria Steinmark
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Empire Records
as Debra
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
My All American
as Gloria Steinmark
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Darwin Awards
as Zoe
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
My All American
as Gloria Steinmark
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. Robin Tunney 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
34 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
The Craft
as Sarah
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ugly Cry
as Valerie
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Empire Records
as Debra
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Looking Glass
as Maggie
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Vertical Limit
as Annie Garrett
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Vertical Limit
as Annie Garrett
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Empire Records
as Debra
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
End of Days
as Christine York
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
Community
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Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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