Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3359
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sarah Hyland works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sarah Hyland appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sarah. The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU is the clearest case: a film rated 9.7 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, comedy, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rose Troche, Brad Lachman, Robert Luketic and others, Sarah Hyland 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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU (2020) as (archive footage) · The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016) as Tiifu (voice) · Annie (1999) as Molly
Career snapshot
Ranked #3359 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1998–2022
Career length
24 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.7
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.7
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
Most frequent director
Rose Troche
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Rose Troche
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 28m
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
2020s
7.8 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. My Fake Boyfriend, The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.8
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. Annie, The Object of My Affection.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.81 film | 5.82 films | — |
| Action | — | 6.31 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.41 film | 6.04 films | 5.91 film |
| Romance | 5.81 film | 5.51 film | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998The Object of My Affection
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Molly.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.7 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
The current state of the argument, as Kelly.
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 (archive footage)
Directed by Brad Lachman
as Mara
Directed by Robert Luketic
as Tiifu (voice)
Directed by Howy Parkins
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
(archive footage)
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU (2020)
Performance score9.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. (archive footage) gives Sarah Hyland a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mara
The Wedding Year (2019)
Performance score6.7
The Wedding Year asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mara is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tiifu (voice)
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016)
Performance score6.6
The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tiifu (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kelly
My Fake Boyfriend (2022)
Performance score6.5
My Fake Boyfriend asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kelly 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 (archive footage)
Start here. The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU is the clearest statement of what Sarah Hyland does — accessible, 42 minutes, and rated 9.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sarah 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 Lion Guard: Return of the Roar (2016)
A deliberate change of key after The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Wedding Year (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Adventure Awaits (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Wedding Year — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
My Fake Boyfriend (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge - Adventure Awaits — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Nicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Object of My Affection
Rob Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Annie
Brian Dannelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Struck by Lightning
Mark Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Vampire Academy
Howy Parkins
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lion Guard: Return of the Roar
Wayne Blair
Director
1 film together
Notably Dirty Dancing
Robert Luketic
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wedding Year
Brad Lachman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
Rose Troche
Director
1 film together
Notably My Fake Boyfriend
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brad Lachman
Director
1 film together · 9.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVUHowy Parkins
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 Lion Guard: Return of the RoarRob Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AnnieMark Waters
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Vampire AcademyBrian Dannelly
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Struck by LightningRose Troche
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Fake BoyfriendRobert Luketic
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wedding YearNicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Object of My AffectionWayne Blair
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dirty DancingSix 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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as (archive footage)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Object of My Affection
as Molly
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 Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as (archive footage)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Object of My Affection
as Molly
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as (archive footage)
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. Sarah Hyland 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
24 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
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as (archive footage)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as (archive footage)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Dirty Dancing
as Lisa Houseman
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Vampire Academy
as Natalie Dashkov
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Paley Center Salutes Law & Order: SVU
as (archive footage)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Vampire Academy
as Natalie Dashkov
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Object of My Affection
as Molly
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
My Fake Boyfriend
as Kelly
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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