Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8646
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Daniel Day-Lewis represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 43 years in, and Daniel is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Daniel Day-Lewis appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Daniel. There Will Be Blood is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, documentary, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jeanne Burel, Steven Spielberg, Rob Marshall and others, Daniel Day-Lewis 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.
There Will Be Blood (2007) as Daniel Plainview · In the Name of the Father (1993) as Gerry Conlon · Gangs of New York (2002) as Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting
Career snapshot
Ranked #8646 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1982–2025
Career length
43 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
There Will Be Blood
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
There Will Be Blood
Most frequent director
Martin Scorsese
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Martin Scorsese
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
2h 11m
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
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
1990s
7.2 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Crucible, In the Name of the Father, The Age of Innocence — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.2
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. A Room with a View, The Bounty, Gandhi.
Most productive era
1990s
4 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.03 films | 7.24 films | 6.84 films | 6.91 film | 5.91 film |
| Action | 6.71 film | — | — | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | 7.41 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.81 film | 7.01 film | 5.51 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1982Gandhi
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Colin.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.1 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
2025Anemone
The current state of the argument, as Ray Stoker.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Self (archive footage)
Directed by Jeanne Burel
as Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting
Directed by Martin Scorsese
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
Daniel Plainview
There Will Be Blood (2007)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Daniel Plainview gives Daniel Day-Lewis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Gerry Conlon
In the Name of the Father (1993)
Performance score8.2
In the Name of the Father asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gerry Conlon is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hawkeye
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Performance score8.0
The Last of the Mohicans asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hawkeye is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self (archive footage)
Daniel Day-Lewis: The Hollywood Genius (2021)
Performance score7.8
Daniel Day-Lewis: The Hollywood Genius asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self (archive footage) 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 Daniel Plainview
Start here. There Will Be Blood is the clearest statement of what Daniel Day-Lewis does — accessible, 158 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Daniel 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.
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Keeps the drama register of There Will Be Blood but asks for a colder reading of it.
In the Name of the Father (1993)
Keeps the drama register of The Last of the Mohicans but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gangs of New York (2002)
Keeps the drama register of In the Name of the Father but asks for a colder reading of it.
Daniel Day-Lewis: The Hollywood Genius (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Gangs of New York — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Scorsese
Director
2 films together
Notably Gangs of New York
Richard Attenborough
Director
1 film together
Notably Gandhi
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bounty
James Ivory
Director
1 film together
Notably A Room with a View
Michael Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last of the Mohicans
Jim Sheridan
Director
1 film together
Notably In the Name of the Father
Nicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Crucible
Rebecca Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ballad of Jack and Rose
Paul Thomas Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably There Will Be Blood
Rob Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Nine
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Lincoln
Jeanne Burel
Director
1 film together
Notably Daniel Day-Lewis: The Hollywood Genius
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Scorsese
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
Gangs of New YorkPaul Thomas Anderson
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
There Will Be BloodJim Sheridan
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In the Name of the FatherMichael Mann
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last of the MohicansRichard Attenborough
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GandhiJeanne Burel
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Daniel Day-Lewis: The Hollywood GeniusSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LincolnJames Ivory
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Room with a ViewRoger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BountyNicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CrucibleRebecca Miller
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 Ballad of Jack and RoseRob Marshall
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NineSix 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
There Will Be Blood
as Daniel Plainview
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 Age of Innocence
as Newland Archer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
There Will Be Blood
as Daniel Plainview
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Gandhi
as Colin
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
There Will Be Blood
as Daniel Plainview
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. Daniel Day-Lewis 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
43 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
13 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
There Will Be Blood
as Daniel Plainview
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gangs of New York
as Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Lincoln
as Abraham Lincoln
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Gangs of New York
as Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
There Will Be Blood
as Daniel Plainview
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Bounty
as John Fryer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Gangs of New York
as Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gangs of New York
as Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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