Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3932
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Russell Hornsby represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Russell is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Russell Hornsby appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Russell. The Hate U Give is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 romance, drama, tv movie. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gabourey Sidibe, Jaume Collet-Serra, Tina Mabry and others, Russell Hornsby 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.
The Hate U Give (2018) as Maverick Carter · Be Happy (2026) as Ross · Creed II (2018) as Buddy Marcelle
Career snapshot
Ranked #3932 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2000–2026
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
The Hate U Give
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
The Hate U Give
Most frequent director
Gabourey Sidibe
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Gabourey Sidibe
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.6
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
7.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Hate U Give, Creed II, Fences — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.2
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Something New, After the Sunset, Big Fat Liar.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.32 films | 7.23 films | 7.03 films |
| Action | 6.21 film | 7.01 film | 6.41 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.34 films | — | 6.71 film |
| Crime | 6.21 film | 7.81 film | — |
| Romance | 6.62 films | — | 7.12 films |
| Horror | — | — | 5.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2000Meet the Parents
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Late Night Courier.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2018The Hate U Give
7.8 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
2026Mary J. Blige Presents Be Happy
The current state of the argument, as Ross.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Maverick Carter
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
as Ross
Directed by Gabourey Sidibe
as Buddy Marcelle
Directed by Steven Caple Jr.
as Lyons Maxson
Directed by Denzel Washington
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
Maverick Carter
The Hate U Give (2018)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maverick Carter gives Russell Hornsby a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ross
Be Happy (2026)
Performance score8.0
Be Happy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ross is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Buddy Marcelle
Creed II (2018)
Performance score7.1
Creed II asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Buddy Marcelle is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lyons Maxson
Fences (2016)
Performance score7.1
Fences asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lyons Maxson 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 Maverick Carter
Start here. The Hate U Give is the clearest statement of what Russell Hornsby does — accessible, 133 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Russell 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.
Fences (2016)
Keeps the drama register of The Hate U Give but asks for a colder reading of it.
Creed II (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Fences but asks for a colder reading of it.
Be Happy (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Creed II but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mary J. Blige Presents Be Happy (2026)
Keeps the romance register of Be Happy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably Meet the Parents
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Fat Liar
Brett Ratner
Director
1 film together
Notably After the Sunset
Sanaa Hamri
Director
1 film together
Notably Something New
Denzel Washington
Director
1 film together
Notably Fences
Steven Caple Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably Creed II
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hate U Give
Brian Goodman
Director
1 film together
Notably Last Seen Alive
Tina Mabry
Director
1 film together
Notably The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
Jaume Collet-Serra
Director
1 film together
Notably The Woman in the Yard
Gabourey Sidibe
Director
1 film together
Notably Be Happy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hate U GiveGabourey Sidibe
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Be HappySteven Caple Jr.
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Creed IIDenzel Washington
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FencesTina Mabry
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 Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-EatJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Meet the ParentsSanaa Hamri
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Something NewBrian Goodman
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Last Seen AliveBrett Ratner
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
After the SunsetShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big Fat LiarJaume Collet-Serra
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Woman in the YardSix 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
The Hate U Give
as Maverick Carter
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Be Happy
as Ross
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Hate U Give
as Maverick Carter
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Meet the Parents
as Late Night Courier
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Hate U Give
as Maverick Carter
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. Russell Hornsby 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
26 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
The Hate U Give
as Maverick Carter
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Hate U Give
as Maverick Carter
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Be Happy
as Ross
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Woman in the Yard
as David
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Creed II
as Buddy Marcelle
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
After the Sunset
as Jean-Paul
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
After the Sunset
as Jean-Paul
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Something New
as Dr. Brockton
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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