Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5937
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Roseanne Barr represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Roseanne is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Roseanne Barr appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Roseanne. Blue in the Face is the clearest case: a film rated 6.5 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, family, animation. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Will Finn, John Herzfeld, John Waters and others, Roseanne Barr 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.
Blue in the Face (1995) as Dot · Cecil B. Demented (2000) as Rosanne · Home on the Range (2004) as Maggie (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #5937 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1989–2026
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.5
Blue in the Face
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.5
Blue in the Face
Most frequent director
Will Finn
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Will Finn
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 20m
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
2000s
6.1 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Home on the Range, 15 Minutes, Cecil B. Demented — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.1
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.1
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. She-Devil.
Most productive era
1990s
3 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Action | — | — | 6.22 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.31 film | 5.91 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | 5.83 films | 6.41 film | 5.71 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.22 films | — |
| Romance | — | 5.51 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.31 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1989She-Devil
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ruth.
Highest rated performance
1995Blue in the Face
6.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Kill Tony: Once Upon a Time in Texas
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.
8 of 8 films
as Roseanne
Directed by John Herzfeld
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
Maggie (voice)
Home on the Range (2004)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maggie (voice) gives Roseanne Barr a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dot
Blue in the Face (1995)
Performance score6.7
Blue in the Face asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dot is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Kill Tony: Once Upon a Time in Texas (2026)
Performance score6.5
Kill Tony: Once Upon a Time in Texas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Roseanne
15 Minutes (2001)
Performance score6.5
15 Minutes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Roseanne 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 Maggie (voice)
Start here. Home on the Range is the clearest statement of what Roseanne Barr does — accessible, 76 minutes, and rated 6.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Roseanne 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.
Blue in the Face (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Home on the Range — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cecil B. Demented (2000)
Keeps the comedy register of Blue in the Face but asks for a colder reading of it.
15 Minutes (2001)
Keeps the action register of Cecil B. Demented but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kill Tony: Once Upon a Time in Texas (2026)
A deliberate change of key after 15 Minutes — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Susan Seidelman
Director
1 film together
Notably She-Devil
Amy Heckerling
Director
1 film together
Notably Look Who's Talking Too
Rachel Talalay
Director
1 film together
Notably Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
John Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Cecil B. Demented
John Herzfeld
Director
1 film together
Notably 15 Minutes
Will Finn
Director
1 film together
Notably Home on the Range
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Waters
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cecil B. DementedWill Finn
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Home on the RangeSusan Seidelman
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She-DevilJohn Herzfeld
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
15 MinutesAmy Heckerling
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Look Who's Talking TooRachel Talalay
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freddy's Dead: The Final NightmareSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
5 wins · 1 nomination
1 win · latest 1993
as Actor
1 win · latest 1993
as Actor
1 win · latest 1997
as Actor
1 win
as Actor
1 win · latest 2018
as Actor
No wins yet · 1 nomination
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Blue in the Face
as Dot
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Home on the Range
as Maggie (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blue in the Face
as Dot
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
15 Minutes
as Roseanne
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Home on the Range
as Maggie (voice)
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. Roseanne Barr 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
37 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Blue in the Face
as Dot
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cecil B. Demented
as Rosanne
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Home on the Range
as Maggie (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
15 Minutes
as Roseanne
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Cecil B. Demented
as Rosanne
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Cecil B. Demented
as Rosanne
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Cecil B. Demented
as Rosanne
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Home on the Range
as Maggie (voice)
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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Reference
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