Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#23496
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Hank Worden represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 46 years in, and Hank is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Hank Worden appears in 30 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hank. The Searchers 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, drama. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, adventure, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Andrei Konchalovsky, Clint Eastwood, James Fargo and others, Hank Worden 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 Searchers (1956) as Mose Harper · Stagecoach (1939) as Cavalryman (uncredited) · True Grit (1969) as R. Ryan - Undertaker (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #23496 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
30
1939–1985
Career length
46 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
The Searchers
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
The Searchers
Most frequent director
John Ford
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With John Ford
Most common genre
Western
22 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
7.1
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
6.9
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
7.3 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Stagecoach — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.6
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. Stagecoach.
Most productive era
1940s
9 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 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.42 films | 6.51 film | 6.61 film | 6.32 films | 6.62 films |
| Action | — | 6.41 film | — | — | 6.91 film | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | — | — | — | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.61 film | — | 6.72 films | 6.62 films | 6.41 film |
| Romance | — | 6.44 films | — | 6.81 film | — | 6.41 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1939Stagecoach
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cavalryman (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1956The Searchers
7.5 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
1985Runaway Train
The current state of the argument, as Old Con.
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.
30 of 30 films
as Mose Harper
Directed by John Ford
as Cavalryman (uncredited)
Directed by John Ford
as R. Ryan - Undertaker (uncredited)
Directed by Henry Hathaway
as Simms Reeves
Directed by Howard Hawks
as Trucker (uncredited)
Directed by Hal Needham
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
Mose Harper
The Searchers (1956)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mose Harper gives Hank Worden a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cavalryman (uncredited)
Stagecoach (1939)
Performance score7.2
Stagecoach asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cavalryman (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
R. Ryan - Undertaker (uncredited)
True Grit (1969)
Performance score7.0
True Grit asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. R. Ryan - Undertaker (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Simms Reeves
Red River (1948)
Performance score6.9
Red River asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Simms Reeves 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 Mose Harper
Start here. The Searchers is the clearest statement of what Hank Worden does — accessible, 119 minutes, and rated 7.5 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.
Stagecoach (1939)
Same director as The Searchers, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Red River (1948)
Keeps the western register of Stagecoach but asks for a colder reading of it.
True Grit (1969)
Keeps the western register of Red River but asks for a colder reading of it.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
A deliberate change of key after True Grit — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Ford
Director
6 films together
Notably The Searchers
Andrew V. McLaglen
Director
3 films together
Notably Chisum
King Vidor
Director
2 films together
Notably Duel in the Sun
Norman Foster
Director
2 films together
Notably Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier
Howard Hawks
Director
2 films together
Notably Red River
Norman Z. McLeod
Director
1 film together
Notably The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
James Edward Grant
Director
1 film together
Notably Angel and the Badman
William A. Wellman
Director
1 film together
Notably Yellow Sky
George Waggner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Fighting Kentuckian
Samuel Fuller
Director
1 film together
Notably Forty Guns
John Wayne
Director
1 film together
Notably The Alamo
Marlon Brando
Director
1 film together
Notably One-Eyed Jacks
Morton DaCosta
Director
1 film together
Notably The Music Man
Henry Hathaway
Director
1 film together
Notably True Grit
George Sherman
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Jake
Robert Stevenson
Director
1 film together
Notably Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Hal Needham
Director
1 film together
Notably Smokey and the Bandit
James Fargo
Director
1 film together
Notably Every Which Way but Loose
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Bronco Billy
Andrei Konchalovsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Runaway Train
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Ford
Director
6 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The SearchersAndrew V. McLaglen
Director
3 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
ChisumHoward Hawks
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
Red RiverKing Vidor
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Duel in the SunNorman Foster
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Davy Crockett, King of the Wild FrontierHenry Hathaway
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
True GritHal Needham
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Smokey and the BanditRobert Stevenson
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bedknobs and BroomsticksJohn Wayne
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 AlamoAndrei Konchalovsky
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Runaway TrainMorton DaCosta
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 Music ManWilliam A. Wellman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Yellow SkyGeorge Sherman
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big JakeMarlon Brando
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One-Eyed JacksNorman Z. McLeod
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Secret Life of Walter MittySamuel Fuller
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Forty GunsClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bronco BillyJames Edward Grant
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Angel and the BadmanJames Fargo
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Every Which Way but LooseGeorge Waggner
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Fighting KentuckianSix 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 Searchers
as Mose Harper
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
as Old Home Guardsman (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 Searchers
as Mose Harper
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
as Old Home Guardsman (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Searchers
as Mose Harper
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 Worden 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
46 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Western Legend
Awarded
22 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 Searchers
as Mose Harper
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Runaway Train
as Old Con
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
as Old Home Guardsman (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
as Old Home Guardsman (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Smokey and the Bandit
as Trucker (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Runaway Train
as Old Con
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Music Man
as Undertaker
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Fighting Kentuckian
as Abner Todd
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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