Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#65326
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Errol Flynn 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.
Errol Flynn appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Errol. The Adventures of Robin Hood is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for romance, action, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Vincent Sherman, Raoul Walsh, Michael Curtiz and others, Errol Flynn 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 Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) as Robin Hood · Captain Blood (1935) as Dr. Peter Blood · The Sea Hawk (1940) as Captain Geoffrey Thorpe
Career snapshot
Ranked #65326 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1935–1948
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Most frequent director
Michael Curtiz
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With Michael Curtiz
Most common genre
Adventure
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 56m
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
6.4
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 Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Dodge City, The Dawn Patrol — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.6
Across 7 catalogue films 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 Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, Dodge City, The Dawn Patrol.
Most productive era
1930s
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 | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.44 films | 6.52 films |
| Action | 6.51 film | 6.52 films |
| Romance | 6.83 films | 6.63 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1935Captain Blood
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dr. Peter Blood.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1938The Adventures of Robin Hood
7.2 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
The current state of the argument, as Don Juan de Maraña.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Robin Hood
Directed by William Keighley
as Dr. Peter Blood
Directed by Michael Curtiz
as Captain Geoffrey Thorpe
Directed by Michael Curtiz
as Capt. Nelson
Directed by Raoul Walsh
as Wade Hatton
Directed by Michael Curtiz
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
Robin Hood
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Robin Hood gives Errol Flynn a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Peter Blood
Captain Blood (1935)
Performance score7.5
Captain Blood asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Peter Blood is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Captain Geoffrey Thorpe
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Performance score7.4
The Sea Hawk asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Geoffrey Thorpe is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Capt. Nelson
Objective, Burma! (1945)
Performance score7.3
Objective, Burma! asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Capt. Nelson 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 Robin Hood
Start here. The Adventures of Robin Hood is the clearest statement of what Errol Flynn does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Errol 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.
Captain Blood (1935)
Keeps the romance register of The Adventures of Robin Hood but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dodge City (1939)
Same director as Captain Blood, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Sea Hawk (1940)
Same director as Dodge City, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Objective, Burma! (1945)
Keeps the adventure register of The Sea Hawk but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Curtiz
Director
6 films together
Notably Captain Blood
William Keighley
Director
2 films together
Notably The Adventures of Robin Hood
Raoul Walsh
Director
2 films together
Notably Objective, Burma!
Edmund Goulding
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dawn Patrol
Vincent Sherman
Director
1 film together
Notably Adventures of Don Juan
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Curtiz
Director
6 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Captain BloodWilliam Keighley
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Adventures of Robin HoodRaoul Walsh
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Objective, Burma!Vincent Sherman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Adventures of Don JuanEdmund Goulding
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 Dawn PatrolSix 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 Adventures of Robin Hood
as Robin Hood
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Captain Blood
as Dr. Peter Blood
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 Adventures of Robin Hood
as Robin Hood
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex
as The Earl of Essex
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Adventures of Robin Hood
as Robin Hood
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. Errol Flynn 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
7 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 Adventures of Robin Hood
as Robin Hood
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Adventures of Robin Hood
as Robin Hood
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Sea Hawk
as Captain Geoffrey Thorpe
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Prince and the Pauper
as Miles Hendon
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Adventures of Robin Hood
as Robin Hood
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Adventures of Don Juan
as Don Juan de Maraña
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Sea Hawk
as Captain Geoffrey Thorpe
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Santa Fe Trail
as Jeb Stuart
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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