Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#120311
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Donald Hodson works on transformation 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.
Donald Hodson appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Donald. The Last Temptation of Christ is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are transformation, versatility, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, action, western. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Martin Scorsese, Enzo Barboni, Carroll Ballard and others, Donald Hodson 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 Last Temptation of Christ (1988) as Saducee · The Black Stallion (1979) as Taurog · Renegade (1987) as Ely
Career snapshot
Ranked #120311 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
1978–1988
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The Last Temptation of Christ
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
The Last Temptation of Christ
Most frequent director
Martin Scorsese
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Martin Scorsese
Most common genre
Adventure
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
6.2
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
1980s
6.7 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. The Last Temptation of Christ, Renegade — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
6.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Black Stallion, Starcrash.
Most productive era
1970s
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 | 1970s | 1980s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.11 film |
| Action | — | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1978Starcrash
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Prisoner.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
1988The Last Temptation of Christ
7.1 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. The current state of the argument, as Saducee.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Ely
Directed by Enzo Barboni
as Prisoner
Directed by Luigi Cozzi
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Saducee
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Saducee gives Donald Hodson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Taurog
The Black Stallion (1979)
Performance score6.7
The Black Stallion asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Taurog is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ely
Renegade (1987)
Performance score6.5
Renegade asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ely is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Prisoner
Starcrash (1978)
Performance score6.5
Starcrash asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Prisoner 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 Saducee
Start here. The Last Temptation of Christ is the clearest statement of what Donald Hodson does — accessible, 164 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Donald 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.
Starcrash (1978)
The turn in the path: a film the public underrates and we do not. By this point you will know why.
The Black Stallion (1979)
A deliberate change of key after Starcrash — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Renegade (1987)
Keeps the adventure register of The Black Stallion 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.
Martin Scorsese
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 Last Temptation of ChristCarroll Ballard
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Black StallionEnzo Barboni
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RenegadeLuigi Cozzi
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
StarcrashSix 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 Black Stallion
as Taurog
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 Black Stallion
as Taurog
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 Last Temptation of Christ
as Saducee
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Last Temptation of Christ
as Saducee
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Last Temptation of Christ
as Saducee
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. Donald Hodson 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.
Adventure Legend
Awarded
2 catalogue titles in adventure, 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 Last Temptation of Christ
as Saducee
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Last Temptation of Christ
as Saducee
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Black Stallion
as Taurog
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Starcrash
as Prisoner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Renegade
as Ely
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Renegade
as Ely
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Renegade
as Ely
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Starcrash
as Prisoner
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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Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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