Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1001
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tessa Thompson 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.
Tessa Thompson appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tessa. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 romance, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nia DaCosta, Michael B. Jordan, Taika Waititi and others, Tessa 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.
Avengers: Endgame (2019) as Valkyrie · Thor: Ragnarok (2017) as Valkyrie · Creed (2015) as Bianca
Career snapshot
Ranked #1001 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2006–2025
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Avengers: Endgame
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Avengers: Endgame
Most frequent director
Nia DaCosta
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Nia DaCosta
Most common genre
Drama
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Avengers: Endgame, Between Two Ferns: The Movie, Little Woods — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 12 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
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. Make It Happen, When a Stranger Calls.
Most productive era
2010s
12 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 | 6.01 film | 6.75 films | 6.34 films |
| Action | — | 7.05 films | 6.53 films |
| Thriller | — | 5.41 film | 5.51 film |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | 6.46 films | 6.61 film |
| Romance | 6.01 film | — | 5.82 films |
| Horror | 5.71 film | 6.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Scarlet.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.5 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
2025Hedda
The current state of the argument, as Hedda Gabler.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Valkyrie
Directed by Anthony Russo
as Valkyrie
Directed by Taika Waititi
as Bianca Creed
Directed by Michael B. Jordan
as Bianca
Directed by Steven Caple Jr.
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
Valkyrie
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Valkyrie gives Tessa Thompson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bianca
Creed (2015)
Performance score7.7
Creed asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bianca is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Valkyrie
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Performance score7.6
Thor: Ragnarok asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Valkyrie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bianca Creed
Creed III (2023)
Performance score7.5
Creed III asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bianca Creed 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 Valkyrie
Start here. Avengers: Endgame is the clearest statement of what Tessa Thompson does — accessible, 181 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tessa 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.
Creed (2015)
A deliberate change of key after Avengers: Endgame — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Creed — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Creed II (2018)
Keeps the action register of Thor: Ragnarok but asks for a colder reading of it.
Creed III (2023)
Keeps the action register of Creed II but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Nia DaCosta
Director
3 films together
Notably The Marvels
Taika Waititi
Director
2 films together
Notably Thor: Ragnarok
Simon West
Director
1 film together
Notably When a Stranger Calls
Darren Grant
Director
1 film together
Notably Make It Happen
Ava DuVernay
Director
1 film together
Notably Selma
Justin Simien
Director
1 film together
Notably Dear White People
Ryan Coogler
Director
1 film together
Notably Creed
Boots Riley
Director
1 film together
Notably Sorry to Bother You
Alex Garland
Director
1 film together
Notably Annihilation
Steven Caple Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably Creed II
F. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together
Notably Men in Black: International
Scott Aukerman
Director
1 film together
Notably Between Two Ferns: The Movie
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably Avengers: Endgame
Rebecca Hall
Director
1 film together
Notably Passing
Brad Baruh
Director
1 film together
Notably Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Thor: Love and Thunder
Michael B. Jordan
Director
1 film together
Notably Creed III
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Nia DaCosta
Director
3 films together · 5.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The MarvelsTaika Waititi
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Thor: RagnarokAnthony Russo
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Avengers: EndgameRyan Coogler
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CreedAva DuVernay
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SelmaMichael B. Jordan
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Creed IIIBrad Baruh
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marvel Studios Assembled: The Making of Thor: Love and ThunderSteven 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 IIBoots Riley
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sorry to Bother YouAlex Garland
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AnnihilationRebecca Hall
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PassingJustin Simien
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dear White PeopleDarren Grant
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Make It HappenScott Aukerman
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Between Two Ferns: The MovieF. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Men in Black: InternationalSimon West
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When a Stranger CallsSix 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
Thor: Ragnarok
as Valkyrie
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Selma
as Diane Nash
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
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. Tessa 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.
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
10 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
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Hedda
as Hedda Gabler
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
When a Stranger Calls
as Scarlet
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Make It Happen
as Dana
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Avengers: Endgame
as Valkyrie
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael B. Jordan
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Hailee Steinfeld
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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