Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#33746
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Hank Patterson 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.
Hank Patterson appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hank. The Gunfighter is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 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 science fiction, comedy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Stevenson, Jack Arnold, Henry King and others, Hank Patterson 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 Gunfighter (1950) as Jake (uncredited) · The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) as Fisherman Spectator (uncredited) · No Name on the Bullet (1959) as Ed - Chess Player (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #33746 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1946–1961
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
The Gunfighter
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
The Gunfighter
Most frequent director
Jack Arnold
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jack Arnold
Most common genre
Western
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
1950s
6.6 average MV
The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. No Name on the Bullet, Tarantula, The Gunfighter — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1950s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Duel in the Sun.
Most productive era
1950s
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 | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Action | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Romance | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1946Duel in the Sun
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Man (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1950The Gunfighter
6.9 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
1961The Absent-Minded Professor
The current state of the argument, as Fisherman Spectator (uncredited).
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.
5 of 5 films
as Jake (uncredited)
Directed by Henry King
as Josh
Directed by Jack Arnold
as Fisherman Spectator (uncredited)
Directed by Robert Stevenson
as Ed - Chess Player (uncredited)
Directed by Jack Arnold
as Man (uncredited)
Directed by King Vidor
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
Jake (uncredited)
The Gunfighter (1950)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jake (uncredited) gives Hank Patterson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Josh
Tarantula (1955)
Performance score6.6
Tarantula asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Josh is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Fisherman Spectator (uncredited)
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
Performance score6.5
The Absent-Minded Professor asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fisherman Spectator (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ed - Chess Player (uncredited)
No Name on the Bullet (1959)
Performance score6.5
No Name on the Bullet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ed - Chess Player (uncredited) 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 Jake (uncredited)
Start here. The Gunfighter is the clearest statement of what Hank Patterson does — accessible, 85 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hank 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.
Duel in the Sun (1946)
Keeps the western register of The Gunfighter but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tarantula (1955)
A deliberate change of key after Duel in the Sun — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
No Name on the Bullet (1959)
Same director as Tarantula, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)
A deliberate change of key after No Name on the Bullet — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jack Arnold
Director
2 films together
Notably No Name on the Bullet
King Vidor
Director
1 film together
Notably Duel in the Sun
Henry King
Director
1 film together
Notably The Gunfighter
Robert Stevenson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Absent-Minded Professor
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jack Arnold
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
No Name on the BulletHenry King
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GunfighterRobert Stevenson
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 Absent-Minded ProfessorKing Vidor
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Duel in the SunSix 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 Gunfighter
as Jake (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
Duel in the Sun
as Man (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
The Gunfighter
as Jake (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Gunfighter
as Jake (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Gunfighter
as Jake (uncredited)
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. Hank Patterson 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.
Western Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in western, 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 Gunfighter
as Jake (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
No Name on the Bullet
as Ed - Chess Player (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Duel in the Sun
as Man (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Absent-Minded Professor
as Fisherman Spectator (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
No Name on the Bullet
as Ed - Chess Player (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
No Name on the Bullet
as Ed - Chess Player (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Duel in the Sun
as Man (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Duel in the Sun
as Man (uncredited)
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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