Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10142
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Frederick Weller represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Frederick is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Frederick Weller appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Frederick. BlacKkKlansman 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Spike Lee, Neil LaBute, Lila Neugebauer and others, Frederick Weller 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.
BlacKkKlansman (2018) as Master Patrolman Andy Landers · The Fundamentals of Caring (2016) as Bob Richardson · Armageddon (1998) as NASA Tech
Career snapshot
Ranked #10142 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1996–2025
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
BlacKkKlansman
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
BlacKkKlansman
Most frequent director
Spike Lee
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Spike Lee
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
6.5
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
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Armageddon, Basquiat — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Armageddon, Basquiat.
Most productive era
2010s
3 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.21 film | 6.83 films | 6.02 films |
| Action | 7.01 film | — | 5.51 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 5.72 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.21 film | 7.42 films | — |
| Crime | — | — | 6.52 films | 5.51 film |
| Romance | — | 6.21 film | — | 5.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996Basquiat
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Frank.
Career peak
2016The Fundamentals of Caring
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2018BlacKkKlansman
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2025Highest 2 Lowest
The current state of the argument, as Alex Cordova.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Master Patrolman Andy Landers
Directed by Spike Lee
as NASA Tech
Directed by Michael Bay
as Alex Cordova
Directed by Spike Lee
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
Bob Richardson
The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bob Richardson gives Frederick Weller a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Master Patrolman Andy Landers
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Performance score7.3
BlacKkKlansman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Master Patrolman Andy Landers is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
NASA Tech
Armageddon (1998)
Performance score6.9
Armageddon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. NASA Tech is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Frank
Basquiat (1996)
Performance score6.6
Basquiat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frank 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 Bob Richardson
Start here. The Fundamentals of Caring is the clearest statement of what Frederick Weller does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Frederick 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.
Basquiat (1996)
Keeps the drama register of The Fundamentals of Caring but asks for a colder reading of it.
Armageddon (1998)
A deliberate change of key after Basquiat — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
BlacKkKlansman (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Armageddon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Highest 2 Lowest (2025)
Same director as BlacKkKlansman, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Neil LaBute
Director
2 films together
Notably The Shape of Things
Spike Lee
Director
2 films together
Notably BlacKkKlansman
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Armageddon
Rob Burnett
Director
1 film together
Notably The Fundamentals of Caring
Lila Neugebauer
Director
1 film together
Notably Causeway
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Spike Lee
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
BlacKkKlansmanNeil LaBute
Director
2 films together · 6.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Shape of ThingsRob Burnett
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Fundamentals of CaringMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ArmageddonLila Neugebauer
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CausewaySix 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
BlacKkKlansman
as Master Patrolman Andy Landers
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Basquiat
as Frank
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
BlacKkKlansman
as Master Patrolman Andy Landers
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Armageddon
as NASA Tech
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Fundamentals of Caring
as Bob Richardson
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. Frederick Weller 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
29 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
7 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
BlacKkKlansman
as Master Patrolman Andy Landers
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
BlacKkKlansman
as Master Patrolman Andy Landers
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Basquiat
as Frank
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Out of the Blue
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Armageddon
as NASA Tech
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Armageddon
as NASA Tech
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
BlacKkKlansman
as Master Patrolman Andy Landers
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Armageddon
as NASA Tech
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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Reference
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