Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#30862
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Harrison Young 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.
Harrison Young appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Harrison. The Game is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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, adventure, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Shane Black, Rob Zombie, Hugh Wilson and others, Harrison Young 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 Game (1997) as Obsequious Executive · The Flyboys (2008) as Grandpa Thomas · Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) as Harmony's Dad
Career snapshot
Ranked #30862 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1996–2008
Career length
12 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
The Game
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
The Flyboys
Most frequent director
Shane Black
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Shane Black
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 49m
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
2000s
7.0 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Flyboys, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, House of 1000 Corpses — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.0
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. Blast from the Past, Primary Colors, The Game.
Most productive era
1990s
4 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.93 films | — |
| Action | — | 7.61 film |
| Thriller | 7.71 film | 7.21 film |
| Comedy | 6.52 films | 7.21 film |
| Crime | — | 7.42 films |
| Romance | 6.81 film | — |
| Horror | 4.51 film | 6.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1996Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Drifter.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1997The Game
7.7 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
2008The Flyboys
The current state of the argument, as Grandpa Thomas.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Obsequious Executive
Directed by David Fincher
as Grandpa Thomas
Directed by Unknown
as Harmony's Dad
Directed by Shane Black
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
Obsequious Executive
The Game (1997)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Obsequious Executive gives Harrison Young a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Grandpa Thomas
The Flyboys (2008)
Performance score7.4
The Flyboys asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Grandpa Thomas is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Harmony's Dad
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Performance score7.1
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harmony's Dad is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bum
Blast from the Past (1999)
Performance score6.7
Blast from the Past asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bum 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 Obsequious Executive
Start here. The Game is the clearest statement of what Harrison Young does — accessible, 129 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Harrison 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.
Blast from the Past (1999)
Keeps the drama register of The Game but asks for a colder reading of it.
House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
A deliberate change of key after Blast from the Past — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
A deliberate change of key after House of 1000 Corpses — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Flyboys (2008)
Keeps the crime register of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Greg Spence
Director
1 film together
Notably Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering
David Fincher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Game
Mike Nichols
Director
1 film together
Notably Primary Colors
Hugh Wilson
Director
1 film together
Notably Blast from the Past
Rob Zombie
Director
1 film together
Notably House of 1000 Corpses
Shane Black
Director
1 film together
Notably Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Fincher
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The GameShane Black
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kiss Kiss Bang BangHugh Wilson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blast from the PastMike Nichols
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Primary ColorsRob Zombie
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
House of 1000 CorpsesGreg Spence
Director
1 film together · 4.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Children of the Corn IV: The GatheringSix 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 Game
as Obsequious Executive
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Blast from the Past
as Bum
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 Game
as Obsequious Executive
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
as Harmony's Dad
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Game
as Obsequious Executive
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. Harrison Young 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 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
The Game
as Obsequious Executive
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Game
as Obsequious Executive
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Blast from the Past
as Bum
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Game
as Obsequious Executive
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Flyboys
as Grandpa Thomas
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Flyboys
as Grandpa Thomas
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Blast from the Past
as Bum
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Game
as Obsequious Executive
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Zach Grenier
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Richmond Arquette
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Bob Stephenson
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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