Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#68958
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Derren Nesbitt represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 67 years in, and Derren is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Derren Nesbitt appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Derren. Richard Burton: Wild Genius is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 documentary, horror, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Radford, Brian G. Hutton, Roy Ward Baker, Derren Nesbitt 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.
Richard Burton: Wild Genius (2025) as Self · Where Eagles Dare (1968) as Von Hapen · A Night to Remember (1958) as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #68958 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1958–2025
Career length
67 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Richard Burton: Wild Genius
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
A Night to Remember
Most frequent director
Michael Radford
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Radford
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
1960s
7.3 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. Where Eagles Dare — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. A Night to Remember.
Most productive era
2020s
2 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 | 1950s | 1960s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.21 film | — | 6.81 film | 5.81 film | — |
| Action | 7.21 film | — | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.81 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | — | 5.81 film | — |
| Crime | — | — | 6.81 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 5.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2025Richard Burton: Wild Genius
7.5 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. The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
as Sinclair
Directed by Michael Radford
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
Self
Richard Burton: Wild Genius (2025)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Derren Nesbitt a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Von Hapen
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Performance score7.2
Where Eagles Dare asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Von Hapen is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
A Night to Remember (1958)
Performance score7.1
A Night to Remember asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sinclair
Flawless (2007)
Performance score6.7
Flawless asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sinclair 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 Self
Start here. Richard Burton: Wild Genius is the clearest statement of what Derren Nesbitt does — accessible, 59 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Derren 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.
A Night to Remember (1958)
A deliberate change of key after Richard Burton: Wild Genius — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
A deliberate change of key after A Night to Remember — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Flawless (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Where Eagles Dare — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Tucked (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Flawless but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brian G. Hutton
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Where Eagles DareRoy Ward Baker
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Night to RememberMichael Radford
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FlawlessSix 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
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (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
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (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
Where Eagles Dare
as Von Hapen
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Richard Burton: Wild Genius
as Self
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. Derren Nesbitt 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
67 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
3 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
Richard Burton: Wild Genius
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Flawless
as Sinclair
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Flawless
as Sinclair
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Night to Remember
as Stoker Holding Oar on Upturned Lifeboat (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Flawless
as Sinclair
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
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which Derren Nesbitt 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
