Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3064
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jeff Kober represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 30 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 Kober appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jeff. Sully is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 mystery, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jake Johnson, Jerry Ciccoritti, Debra Granik and others, Jeff Kober 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.
Sully (2016) as LT Cook · Leave No Trace (2018) as Mr. Walters · Enough (2002) as FBI Agent
Career snapshot
Ranked #3064 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1995–2025
Career length
30 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Sully
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Sully
Most frequent director
Jake Johnson
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jake Johnson
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
2010s
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Leave No Trace, Dead Sound, Sully — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
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
2010s
6.6
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. Inferno, Kiss the Girls, Tank Girl.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.42 films | 6.52 films | 7.02 films | 3.82 films |
| Action | 5.82 films | 6.21 film | 5.71 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | 6.71 film | 5.71 film | 5.23 films |
| Comedy | 5.51 film | — | — | 5.91 film |
| Crime | 6.61 film | 6.21 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.21 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1995Tank Girl
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Booga.
Highest rated performance
2016Sully
7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2018Leave No Trace
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025Grassland
The current state of the argument.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Mr. Walters
Directed by Debra Granik
as LT Cook
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as FBI Agent
Directed by Michael Apted
as Casanova (voice)
Directed by Gary Fleder
as Sheriff Bordeaux
Directed by Unknown
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
Mr. Walters
Leave No Trace (2018)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mr. Walters gives Jeff Kober a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
LT Cook
Sully (2016)
Performance score7.1
Sully asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. LT Cook is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
FBI Agent
Enough (2002)
Performance score6.6
Enough asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. FBI Agent is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Casanova (voice)
Kiss the Girls (1997)
Performance score6.6
Kiss the Girls asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Casanova (voice) 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 Mr. Walters
Start here. Leave No Trace is the clearest statement of what Jeff Kober does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 6.8 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.
Kiss the Girls (1997)
Keeps the drama register of Leave No Trace but asks for a colder reading of it.
Enough (2002)
Keeps the drama register of Kiss the Girls but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sully (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Enough but asks for a colder reading of it.
Time of Death (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Sully — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Rachel Talalay
Director
1 film together
Notably Tank Girl
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Kiss the Girls
John G. Avildsen
Director
1 film together
Notably Inferno
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably Enough
F. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together
Notably A Man Apart
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Sully
Tony Glazer
Director
1 film together
Notably Dead Sound
Debra Granik
Director
1 film together
Notably Leave No Trace
Jerry Ciccoritti
Director
1 film together
Notably Lie Exposed
Jake Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Self Reliance
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SullyDebra Granik
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Leave No TraceMichael Apted
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EnoughGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kiss the GirlsF. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Man ApartJohn G. Avildsen
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
InfernoJake Johnson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Self RelianceTony Glazer
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dead SoundRachel Talalay
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tank GirlJerry Ciccoritti
Director
1 film together · 3.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lie ExposedSix 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
Sully
as LT Cook
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sully
as LT Cook
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Sully
as LT Cook
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kiss the Girls
as Casanova (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Leave No Trace
as Mr. Walters
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 Kober 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
30 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
8 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
Kiss the Girls
as Casanova (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kiss the Girls
as Casanova (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sully
as LT Cook
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Kiss the Girls
as Casanova (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Sully
as LT Cook
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
A Man Apart
as Pomona Joe
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Sully
as LT Cook
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Kiss the Girls
as Casanova (voice)
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
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Reference
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