Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6456
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Dub Taylor represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 56 years in, and Dub is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Dub Taylor appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dub. Back to the Future Part III is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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, western, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg and others, Dub Taylor 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.
Back to the Future Part III (1990) as Saloon Old Timer · Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) as Reporter (uncredited) · The Wild Bunch (1969) as Reverend Wainscoat
Career snapshot
Ranked #6456 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1938–1994
Career length
56 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Back to the Future Part III
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Most frequent director
Sam Peckinpah
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Sam Peckinpah
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
1990s
7.3 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Maverick, Back to the Future Part III — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.3
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. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Carefree, You Can't Take It with You.
Most productive era
1970s
7 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 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.51 film | — | 7.31 film | 6.73 films | — | 6.91 film |
| Action | — | — | — | 6.63 films | — | 6.91 film |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 6.72 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.03 films | — | — | 6.42 films | 6.41 film | 7.32 films |
| Crime | — | — | 7.31 film | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.82 films | — | — | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.71 film | — | 6.41 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1938Carefree
Where our catalogue meets this career, as (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1990Back to the Future Part III
7.6 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
1994Maverick
The current state of the argument, as Room Clerk.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Saloon Old Timer
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
as Reporter (uncredited)
Directed by Frank Capra
as Reverend Wainscoat
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
as Ivan Moss
Directed by Arthur Penn
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
Saloon Old Timer
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Saloon Old Timer gives Dub Taylor a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Reporter (uncredited)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Performance score7.3
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Reporter (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Reverend Wainscoat
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Performance score7.2
The Wild Bunch asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Reverend Wainscoat is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ivan Moss
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Performance score7.2
Bonnie and Clyde asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ivan Moss 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 Saloon Old Timer
Start here. Back to the Future Part III is the clearest statement of what Dub Taylor does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dub 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.
You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Keeps the comedy register of Back to the Future Part III but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Same director as You Can't Take It with You, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Keeps the drama register of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Wild Bunch (1969)
A deliberate change of key after Bonnie and Clyde — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sam Peckinpah
Director
4 films together
Notably The Wild Bunch
Frank Capra
Director
2 films together
Notably Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Robert Zemeckis
Director
2 films together
Notably Back to the Future Part III
Mark Sandrich
Director
1 film together
Notably Carefree
Gordon Douglas
Director
1 film together
Notably Them!
Arthur Penn
Director
1 film together
Notably Bonnie and Clyde
Elliot Silverstein
Director
1 film together
Notably A Man Called Horse
Michael Cimino
Director
1 film together
Notably Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Dan Curtis
Director
1 film together
Notably Burnt Offerings
Art Stevens
Director
1 film together
Notably The Rescuers
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably 1941
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Maverick
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Sam Peckinpah
Director
4 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Wild BunchFrank Capra
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Mr. Smith Goes to WashingtonRobert Zemeckis
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Back to the Future Part IIIArthur Penn
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bonnie and ClydeRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaverickArt Stevens
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 RescuersMichael Cimino
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thunderbolt and LightfootGordon Douglas
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Them!Mark Sandrich
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CarefreeDan Curtis
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Burnt OfferingsElliot Silverstein
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Man Called HorseSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
1941Six 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
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Reporter (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 Rescuers
as Digger (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
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Reporter (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
as Reporter (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Back to the Future Part III
as Saloon Old Timer
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. Dub Taylor 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
56 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Back to the Future Part III
as Saloon Old Timer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Getaway
as Laughlin
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Rescuers
as Digger (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Burnt Offerings
as Walker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Maverick
as Room Clerk
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Maverick
as Room Clerk
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Maverick
as Room Clerk
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
1941
as Mr. Malcomb
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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David Krumholtz
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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