Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#273
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jeff Goldblum represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 52 years in, and Jeff is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jeff Goldblum appears in 48 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jeff. Henry David Thoreau is the clearest case: a film rated 9.3 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 documentary, romance, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jon M. Chu, Paul Dugdale, Wes Anderson and others, Jeff Goldblum 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.
Henry David Thoreau (2026) as Henry David Thoreau (voice) · The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) as Deputy Kovacs · Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #273 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
48
1974–2026
Career length
52 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.3
Henry David Thoreau
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.3
Henry David Thoreau
Most frequent director
Wes Anderson
5 films together
Longest collaboration
5×
With Wes Anderson
Most common genre
Comedy
22 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.3
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
7.3
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
1970s
6.9 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Sentinel, Annie Hall — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
6.9
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Sentinel, Annie Hall.
Most productive era
2010s
15 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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.13 films | 6.93 films | 6.63 films | 7.11 film | 6.86 films | 6.73 films |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.81 film | 6.83 films | 5.41 film | 6.84 films | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.02 films | 5.91 film | 6.32 films | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | 7.32 films | 6.13 films | 6.03 films | 6.13 films | 7.19 films | 6.92 films |
| Crime | 6.81 film | — | 7.02 films | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | 7.61 film | 5.82 films | 5.71 film | 5.91 film | 6.32 films | 6.82 films |
| Horror | 6.72 films | 7.51 film | — | — | — | 6.62 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1974Death Wish
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Freak #1.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.3 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. The current state of the argument, as Henry David Thoreau (voice).
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.
48 of 48 films
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Deputy Kovacs
Directed by Wes Anderson
as Malcolm
Directed by Steven Spielberg
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Showing 24 of 62 titles · 62 total credits · active 1974–2026
Henry David Thoreau
2026 · Henry David Thoreau (voice)
The Claudia Winkleman Show
2026 · TV · Self
Henry David Thoreau
2026 · TV · Henry David Thoreau (voice)
Wicked: For Good
2025 · The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
2025 · Self
Meister der Apokalypse - Roland Emmerich
2025 · Self
Wicked
2024 · The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
KAOS
2024 · TV · Zeus
Asteroid City
2023 · The Alien
They Shot the Piano Player
2023 · Jeff Harris (voice)
Jurassic World Dominion
2022 · Ian Malcolm
The Boss Baby: Family Business
2021 · Dr. Armstrong (voice)
Time Warp Vol. 1: Midnight Madness
2020 · Self
Time Warp Vol. 2: Horror and Sci-Fi
2020 · Self
The Mountain
2019 · Dr. Wallace Fiennes
#NoJoke
2019 · Self
Isle of Dogs
2018 · Duke (voice)
Hotel Artemis
2018 · Orian "Wolf King" Franklin / Niagara
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
2018 · Ian Malcolm
Team Darryl
2018 · En Dwi Gast / Grandmaster
Thor: Ragnarok
2017 · Grandmaster
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
2017 · En Dwi Gast / Grandmaster (uncredited)
Tour de Pharmacy
2017 · Marty Hass Present Day
Independence Day: Resurgence
2016 · David Levinson
The defining work
#1
Henry David Thoreau (voice)
Henry David Thoreau (2026)
Performance score9.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Henry David Thoreau (voice) gives Jeff Goldblum a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Deputy Kovacs
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Performance score8.7
The Grand Budapest Hotel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Deputy Kovacs is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Malcolm
Jurassic Park (1993)
Performance score8.4
Jurassic Park asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Malcolm is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025)
Performance score8.2
Wicked: One Wonderful Night asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self 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 Henry David Thoreau (voice)
Start here. Henry David Thoreau is the clearest statement of what Jeff Goldblum does — accessible, 173 minutes, and rated 9.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jeff 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.
Jurassic Park (1993)
A deliberate change of key after Henry David Thoreau — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Keeps the adventure register of Jurassic Park but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)
Same director as The Grand Budapest Hotel, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025)
A deliberate change of key after The Grand Budapest Hotel — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Wes Anderson
Director
5 films together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Michael Winner
Director
2 films together
Notably Death Wish
Philip Kaufman
Director
2 films together
Notably The Right Stuff
Lawrence Kasdan
Director
2 films together
Notably Silverado
Robert Altman
Director
2 films together
Notably The Player
Steven Spielberg
Director
2 films together
Notably Jurassic Park
Roland Emmerich
Director
2 films together
Notably Independence Day
Taika Waititi
Director
2 films together
Notably Thor: Ragnarok
Jon M. Chu
Director
2 films together
Notably Wicked
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Annie Hall
W.D. Richter
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
David Cronenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably The Fly
Bill Duke
Director
1 film together
Notably Deep Cover
Chris Columbus
Director
1 film together
Notably Nine Months
Stephen Herek
Director
1 film together
Notably Holy Man
Brenda Chapman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Prince of Egypt
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Man of the Year
Josh Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Switch
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Morning Glory
David Koepp
Director
1 film together
Notably Mortdecai
Jake Szymanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Tour de Pharmacy
James Gunn
Director
1 film together
Notably Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
J. A. Bayona
Director
1 film together
Notably Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Tom McGrath
Director
1 film together
Notably The Boss Baby: Family Business
Colin Trevorrow
Director
1 film together
Notably Jurassic World Dominion
Paul Dugdale
Director
1 film together
Notably Wicked: One Wonderful Night
Léa Seydoux
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Edward Norton
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Harvey Keitel
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ralph Fiennes
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
F. Murray Abraham
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Mathieu Amalric
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Adrien Brody
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Willem Dafoe
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jude Law
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Bill Murray
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Saoirse Ronan
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Jason Schwartzman
Actor
1 film together
Notably The Grand Budapest Hotel
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Wes Anderson
Director
5 films together · 7.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 5 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Grand Budapest HotelSteven Spielberg
Director
2 films together · 7.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Jurassic ParkPhilip Kaufman
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Right StuffRobert Altman
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The PlayerTaika Waititi
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Thor: RagnarokJon M. Chu
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
WickedLawrence Kasdan
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
SilveradoMichael Winner
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
Death WishRoland Emmerich
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
Independence DayPaul Dugdale
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wicked: One Wonderful NightJames Gunn
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2Woody Allen
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Annie HallDavid Cronenberg
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FlyTom McGrath
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 Boss Baby: Family BusinessBrenda Chapman
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 Prince of EgyptBill Duke
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deep CoverJake Szymanski
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tour de PharmacyColin Trevorrow
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jurassic World DominionJ. A. Bayona
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jurassic World: Fallen KingdomRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Morning GloryJosh Gordon
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SwitchW.D. Richter
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th DimensionBarry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Man of the YearChris Columbus
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nine MonthsDavid Koepp
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MortdecaiStephen Herek
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Holy ManSix 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
Henry David Thoreau
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Prince of Egypt
as Aaron (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Henry David Thoreau
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Player
as Jeff Goldblum
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Henry David Thoreau
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
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. Jeff Goldblum has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
| Nutevio Performer Score | 8.1 | 9.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Career ranking | #358 of 681 | #1 of 681 |
| Awards on file | Unknown | 3 recorded |
| Oscar wins | Unknown | 1 |
| Oscar nominations | Unknown | 5 |
| Average Nutevio score | 8.8 | 9.1 |
| Genres | Comedy, Adventure, Drama | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, History |
| Directors | Wes Anderson | Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese |
| Performance DNA | Screen presence, Rewatchability, Comedy | Transformation, Drama, Screen presence |
| Career timeline | 2014–2014 | 2006–2026 |
| Most iconic role | Deputy Kovacs — The Grand Budapest Hotel | Odysseus — The Odyssey |
| Most rewatchable film | The Grand Budapest Hotel | Interstellar |
| Filmography | 1 catalogue film | 4 catalogue films |
Films together
Nothing in common in the library yet.
Shared directors
Nothing in common in the library yet.
Shared collections
Adventure Movies, Drama Movies
Matt Damon edges ahead here — a higher floor across a comparable body of work.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
52 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
22 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
Henry David Thoreau
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Henry David Thoreau
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Wicked: For Good
as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Sentinel
as Jack
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Henry David Thoreau
as Henry David Thoreau (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
as Ian Malcolm
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Prince of Egypt
as Aaron (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Grand Budapest Hotel
as Deputy Kovacs
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
Across the library
Every Nutevio collection this name turns up in, and how high they rank there.
Collection footprint
Appears in 5 Nutevio collections
Keep reading
genre
Best Comedies
Features The Grand Budapest Hotel at #1
Read the collectiongenre
Comedy Movies
Features The Grand Budapest Hotel at #2
Read the collectiongenre
Best Family Movies
Features The Grand Budapest Hotel at #3
Read the collectiongenre
Adventure Movies
Features The Grand Budapest Hotel
Read the collectiongenre
Drama Movies
Features The Grand Budapest Hotel
Read the collectionFrom the magazine
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Jeff Goldblum performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
