Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#170934
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Denis Greene 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.
Denis Greene appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Denis. Waterloo Bridge is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 action, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ernest B. Schoedsack, Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy and others, Denis Greene 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.
Waterloo Bridge (1940) as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited) · The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) as Denis Green (uncredited) · Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) as Freddie
Career snapshot
Ranked #170934 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1939–1949
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Waterloo Bridge
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Waterloo Bridge
Most frequent director
Ernest B. Schoedsack
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ernest B. Schoedsack
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.3
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
1930s
6.6 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Most productive era
1940s
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 | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.64 films |
| Action | — | 6.41 film |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | — |
| Romance | — | 7.01 film |
| Horror | — | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1939The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Denis Green (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1940Waterloo Bridge
7.0 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
1949Mighty Joe Young
The current state of the argument, as Crawford.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
as Crawford
Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
as Denis Green (uncredited)
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
as Freddie
Directed by Victor Fleming
as Capt. Williams
Directed by King Vidor
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
Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited) gives Denis Greene a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Crawford
Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Performance score6.6
Mighty Joe Young asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Crawford is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Denis Green (uncredited)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
Performance score6.6
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Denis Green (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Freddie
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Performance score6.5
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Freddie 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 Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
Start here. Waterloo Bridge is the clearest statement of what Denis Greene does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Denis 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 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
A deliberate change of key after Waterloo Bridge — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Northwest Passage (1940)
A deliberate change of key after The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Keeps the drama register of Northwest Passage but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mighty Joe Young (1949)
Keeps the drama register of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Alfred L. Werker
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
King Vidor
Director
1 film together
Notably Northwest Passage
Mervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together
Notably Waterloo Bridge
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Ernest B. Schoedsack
Director
1 film together
Notably Mighty Joe Young
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mervyn LeRoy
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Waterloo BridgeAlfred L. Werker
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Adventures of Sherlock HolmesVictor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeErnest B. Schoedsack
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mighty Joe YoungKing Vidor
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Northwest PassageSix 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
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (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
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (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. Denis Greene 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
4 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 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
as Denis Green (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
as Denis Green (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
as Denis Green (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mighty Joe Young
as Crawford
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mighty Joe Young
as Crawford
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Waterloo Bridge
as Sergeant on Bridge (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mighty Joe Young
as Crawford
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
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Denis Greene performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
