Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2595
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Aaron Taylor-Johnson 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.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Aaron. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 action, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Mackenzie, Danny Boyle, J.C. Chandor and others, Aaron Taylor-Johnson 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.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver (uncredited) · Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver · Bullet Train (2022) as Tangerine
Career snapshot
Ranked #2595 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
2003–2026
Career length
23 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Most frequent director
David Mackenzie
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Mackenzie
Most common genre
Action
13 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
7.0
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
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. A Million Little Pieces, Outlaw King, The Wall — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 11 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. The Greatest, The Illusionist, Shanghai Knights.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 6.82 films | 6.66 films | 7.11 film |
| Action | — | 6.97 films | 7.06 films |
| Thriller | 7.31 film | 6.73 films | 7.06 films |
| Comedy | 6.11 film | — | 7.22 films |
| Crime | — | 6.63 films | 7.11 film |
| Romance | 7.31 film | 6.71 film | 7.01 film |
| Horror | — | — | 4.53 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2003Shanghai Knights
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Charlie Chaplin.
Career peak
2010Kick-Ass
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2014Captain America: The Winter Soldier
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Werwulf
The current state of the argument.
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.
24 of 24 films
as Will
Directed by David Mackenzie
as Tangerine
Directed by David Leitch
as Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver (uncredited)
Directed by Anthony Russo
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
Will
Fuze (2026)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Will gives Aaron Taylor-Johnson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tangerine
Bullet Train (2022)
Performance score7.7
Bullet Train asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tangerine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass
Kick-Ass (2010)
Performance score7.7
Kick-Ass asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ray Marcus
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
Performance score7.5
Nocturnal Animals asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ray Marcus 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 Will
Start here. Fuze is the clearest statement of what Aaron Taylor-Johnson does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Aaron 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.
Kick-Ass (2010)
Keeps the action register of Fuze but asks for a colder reading of it.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Keeps the action register of Kick-Ass but asks for a colder reading of it.
Nocturnal Animals (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Captain America: The Winter Soldier — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Bullet Train (2022)
Keeps the thriller register of Nocturnal Animals but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Matthew Vaughn
Director
2 films together
Notably Kick-Ass
David Leitch
Director
2 films together
Notably Bullet Train
David Mackenzie
Director
2 films together
Notably Fuze
David Dobkin
Director
1 film together
Notably Shanghai Knights
Neil Burger
Director
1 film together
Notably The Illusionist
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably Savages
Joe Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Anna Karenina
Jeff Wadlow
Director
1 film together
Notably Kick-Ass 2
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably Godzilla
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Joss Whedon
Director
1 film together
Notably Avengers: Age of Ultron
Tom Ford
Director
1 film together
Notably Nocturnal Animals
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wall
Sam Taylor-Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably A Million Little Pieces
Christopher Nolan
Director
1 film together
Notably Tenet
J.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together
Notably Kraven the Hunter
Danny Boyle
Director
1 film together
Notably 28 Years Later
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Leitch
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
Bullet TrainDavid Mackenzie
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
FuzeMatthew Vaughn
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
Kick-AssAnthony Russo
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Captain America: The Winter SoldierJoss Whedon
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Avengers: Age of UltronChristopher Nolan
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TenetTom Ford
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nocturnal AnimalsNeil Burger
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The IllusionistDanny Boyle
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
28 Years LaterJoe Wright
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Anna KareninaJ.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kraven the HunterDoug Liman
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WallGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GodzillaJeff Wadlow
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kick-Ass 2Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SavagesSam Taylor-Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Million Little PiecesDavid Dobkin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shanghai KnightsSix 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
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver (uncredited)
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 Illusionist
as Young Eisenheim
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Fuze
as Will
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. Aaron Taylor-Johnson 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
23 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in action, 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 Illusionist
as Young Eisenheim
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Bullet Train
as Tangerine
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Anna Karenina
as Vronsky
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Illusionist
as Young Eisenheim
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
as Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kraven the Hunter
as Sergei Kravinoff / Kraven the Hunter
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Wall
as Isaac
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Tenet
as Ives
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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