Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1997
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sophie Thompson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and Sophie is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sophie Thompson appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sophie. Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 science fiction, adventure, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ric Roman Waugh, Dan Zeff, Laura Spini and others, Sophie Thompson 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.
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After (2021) as Frieda · One Red Nose Day and a Wedding (2019) as Lydia · Nicholas Nickleby (2002) as Miss Lacreevy
Career snapshot
Ranked #1997 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1994–2026
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
Average Nutevio score
5.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
Most frequent director
Mike Newell
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Mike Newell
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 27m
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
2000s
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Nicholas Nickleby, Gosford Park — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
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. Emma, Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | 6.82 films | 4.43 films | 0.01 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.81 film | — | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | — | 6.43 films | 6.22 films |
| Romance | 6.72 films | — | 6.73 films | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Four Weddings and a Funeral
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Lydia the Bride - Wedding Two.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
7.1 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 Mackenzie Matthews.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Lydia
Directed by Mike Newell
as Miss Lacreevy
Directed by Douglas McGrath
as Auction Bidder 2
Directed by Thomas Bezucha
as Dorothy
Directed by Robert Altman
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
Frieda
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After (2021)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Frieda gives Sophie Thompson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Lydia
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding (2019)
Performance score6.9
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lydia is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Miss Lacreevy
Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
Performance score6.8
Nicholas Nickleby asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Miss Lacreevy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Auction Bidder 2
Monte Carlo (2011)
Performance score6.7
Monte Carlo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Auction Bidder 2 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 Frieda
Start here. Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After is the clearest statement of what Sophie Thompson does — accessible, 45 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sophie 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.
Gosford Park (2001)
A deliberate change of key after Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Nicholas Nickleby (2002)
Keeps the drama register of Gosford Park but asks for a colder reading of it.
Monte Carlo (2011)
Keeps the adventure register of Nicholas Nickleby but asks for a colder reading of it.
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding (2019)
Keeps the romance register of Monte Carlo but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Douglas McGrath
Director
2 films together
Notably Nicholas Nickleby
Mike Newell
Director
2 films together
Notably One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably Gosford Park
Ryan Murphy
Director
1 film together
Notably Eat Pray Love
Thomas Bezucha
Director
1 film together
Notably Monte Carlo
Laura Spini
Director
1 film together
Notably A Disappearance
Dan Zeff
Director
1 film together
Notably Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
Ric Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together
Notably Greenland 2: Migration
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mike Newell
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
One Red Nose Day and a WeddingDouglas McGrath
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Nicholas NicklebyDan Zeff
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever AfterThomas Bezucha
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Monte CarloRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gosford ParkRic Roman Waugh
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Greenland 2: MigrationRyan Murphy
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eat Pray LoveLaura Spini
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A DisappearanceSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
2 wins
1 win
as Actor
1 win
as Actor
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Nicholas Nickleby
as Miss Lacreevy
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
as Lydia
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
as Frieda
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Eat Pray Love
as Corella
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hansel & Gretel: After Ever After
as Frieda
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. Sophie Thompson 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
32 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
Gosford Park
as Dorothy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gosford Park
as Dorothy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
as Lydia
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Gosford Park
as Dorothy
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Nicholas Nickleby
as Miss Lacreevy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Nicholas Nickleby
as Miss Lacreevy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
One Red Nose Day and a Wedding
as Lydia
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Greenland 2: Migration
as Mackenzie Matthews
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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