Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Billy Smith appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Billy. The Departed is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gareth Edwards, Doug Liman, Ben Affleck and others, Billy Smith 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 Departed (2006) as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan · Sully (2016) as Dan Britt · Air (2023) as Bill
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Billy Smith.
Films in Nutevio
11
2006–2025
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
The Departed
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
The Departed
Most frequent director
Peter Berg
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Peter Berg
Most common genre
Action
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 56m
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
2000s
8.4 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Departed — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
8.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
8.2
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 Departed.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 8.41 film | 6.93 films | 7.21 film |
| Action | — | 6.35 films | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | 8.41 film | 6.63 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.11 film | 6.31 film |
| Crime | 8.41 film | 6.82 films | 6.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2006The Departed
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan. 8.4 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 Cop.
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 Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Dan Britt
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Charlie Collins
Directed by Peter Berg
as Cop
Directed by Gareth Edwards
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
Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
The Departed (2006)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Detective #1 Tailing Queenan gives Billy Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dan Britt
Sully (2016)
Performance score7.2
Sully asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dan Britt is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bill
Air (2023)
Performance score7.1
Air asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Charlie Collins
Patriots Day (2016)
Performance score7.0
Patriots Day asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Charlie Collins 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 Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
Start here. The Departed is the clearest statement of what Billy Smith does — accessible, 151 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Billy 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.
Sully (2016)
Keeps the drama register of The Departed but asks for a colder reading of it.
Patriots Day (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Sully but asks for a colder reading of it.
Air (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Patriots Day but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Air — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Clint Eastwood
Director
2 films together
Notably Sully
Peter Berg
Director
2 films together
Notably Patriots Day
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Departed
Tony Gilroy
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bourne Legacy
Jesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Debt Collector
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Air
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Instigators
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably Jurassic World Rebirth
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Peter Berg
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
Patriots DayClint Eastwood
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
SullyMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DepartedBen Affleck
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AirGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jurassic World RebirthTony Gilroy
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 Bourne LegacyDoug Liman
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The InstigatorsJesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Debt CollectorSix 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 Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sully
as Dan Britt
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 Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Sully
as Dan Britt
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
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. Billy Smith 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
6 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 Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sully
as Dan Britt
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Jurassic World Rebirth
as Cop
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Departed
as Detective #1 Tailing Queenan
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Final Level: Escaping Rancala
as Guerilla Soldier / Creature
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
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Community
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