Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16444
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Bud Cort represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 46 years in, and Bud is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Bud Cort appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Bud. Heat is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 fantasy, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mark Osborne, Joel Schumacher, Wes Anderson and others, Bud Cort 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.
Heat (1995) as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited) · The Little Prince (2015) as The King (voice) · Harold and Maude (1971) as Harold
Career snapshot
Ranked #16444 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1969–2015
Career length
46 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Heat
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Heat
Most frequent director
Mark Osborne
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Mark Osborne
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.3
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
7.0
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
7.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Little Prince — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Sweet Charity.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1960s | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 7.12 films | 8.01 film | 6.55 films | — |
| Action | — | — | 8.01 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 6.22 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 7.12 films | 6.91 film | 6.72 films | — |
| Crime | — | — | 8.01 film | 6.41 film | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | 7.31 film | — | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1969Sweet Charity
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Flower Child (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1995Heat
8.0 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 The King (voice).
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.
12 of 12 films
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
Directed by Michael Mann
as Harold
Directed by Hal Ashby
as The King (voice)
Directed by Mark Osborne
as Bill Ubell
Directed by Wes Anderson
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
Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
Heat (1995)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited) gives Bud Cort a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Harold
Harold and Maude (1971)
Performance score7.6
Harold and Maude asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harold is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
The King (voice)
The Little Prince (2015)
Performance score7.4
The Little Prince asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The King (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bill Ubell
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Performance score7.0
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill Ubell 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 Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
Start here. Heat is the clearest statement of what Bud Cort does — accessible, 170 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Bud 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.
Harold and Maude (1971)
Keeps the drama register of Heat but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pollock (2000)
Keeps the drama register of Harold and Maude but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
Keeps the drama register of Pollock but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Little Prince (2015)
Keeps the adventure register of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bob Fosse
Director
1 film together
Notably Sweet Charity
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably M*A*S*H
Hal Ashby
Director
1 film together
Notably Harold and Maude
George Butler
Director
1 film together
Notably Pumping Iron
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably Heat
Kevin Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Dogma
Ed Harris
Director
1 film together
Notably Pollock
Wim Wenders
Director
1 film together
Notably The Million Dollar Hotel
Wes Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Joel Schumacher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Number 23
Mark Osborne
Director
1 film together
Notably The Little Prince
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HeatMark Osborne
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Little PrinceHal Ashby
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Harold and MaudeWes Anderson
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Life Aquatic with Steve ZissouKevin Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DogmaGeorge Butler
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pumping IronRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
M*A*S*HEd Harris
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PollockBob Fosse
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sweet CharityJoel Schumacher
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 Number 23Wim Wenders
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 Million Dollar HotelSix 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
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (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 Little Prince
as The King (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
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. Bud Cort 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
46 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
9 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
The Little Prince
as The King (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Little Prince
as The King (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Number 23
as Dr. Sirius Leary
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Sweet Charity
as Flower Child (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Heat
as Solenko, Restaurant Manager (uncredited)
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
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Bud Cort performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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