Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2736
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jeremy Davies represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Jeremy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jeremy Davies appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jeremy. Saving Private Ryan is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 horror, thriller, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Scott Derrickson, David Slade, Ryan Fleck and others, Jeremy Davies 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.
Saving Private Ryan (1998) as Corporal Upham · Dogville (2003) as Bill Henson · The Black Phone (2022) as Terrence Blake
Career snapshot
Ranked #2736 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1994–2025
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Saving Private Ryan
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Saving Private Ryan
Most frequent director
Scott Derrickson
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Scott Derrickson
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
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
1990s
7.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Ravenous, Saving Private Ryan, Twister — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.1
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
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. Ravenous, Saving Private Ryan, Twister.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.14 films | 6.74 films | 7.01 film | — |
| Action | 6.71 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | 6.82 films | — | 6.64 films |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | 7.01 film | — |
| Crime | — | 7.81 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | 7.01 film | — |
| Horror | 6.71 film | — | — | 6.73 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Nell
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Billy Fisher.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.5 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
2025Black Phone 2
The current state of the argument, as Terrence Blake.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Corporal Upham
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Terrence Blake
Directed by Scott Derrickson
as Bill Henson
Directed by Lars von Trier
as Gene
Directed by Werner Herzog
as Terrence Blake
Directed by Scott Derrickson
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
Corporal Upham
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Corporal Upham gives Jeremy Davies a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Terrence Blake
The Black Phone (2022)
Performance score7.6
The Black Phone asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Terrence Blake is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bill Henson
Dogville (2003)
Performance score7.6
Dogville asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill Henson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Gene
Rescue Dawn (2007)
Performance score7.1
Rescue Dawn asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Gene 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 Corporal Upham
Start here. Saving Private Ryan is the clearest statement of what Jeremy Davies does — accessible, 169 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jeremy 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.
Dogville (2003)
Keeps the drama register of Saving Private Ryan but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rescue Dawn (2007)
Keeps the drama register of Dogville but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Black Phone (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Rescue Dawn — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Black Phone 2 (2025)
Same director as The Black Phone, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Scott Derrickson
Director
2 films together
Notably The Black Phone
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably Nell
Jan de Bont
Director
1 film together
Notably Twister
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Saving Private Ryan
Antonia Bird
Director
1 film together
Notably Ravenous
Wim Wenders
Director
1 film together
Notably The Million Dollar Hotel
Lars von Trier
Director
1 film together
Notably Dogville
Werner Herzog
Director
1 film together
Notably Rescue Dawn
Ryan Fleck
Director
1 film together
Notably It's Kind of a Funny Story
David Slade
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Harvest
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Scott Derrickson
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 Black PhoneSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Saving Private RyanLars von Trier
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DogvilleRyan Fleck
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
It's Kind of a Funny StoryWerner Herzog
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rescue DawnAntonia Bird
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RavenousJan de Bont
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TwisterMichael Apted
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NellDavid Slade
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark HarvestWim Wenders
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Million Dollar HotelSix 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
Saving Private Ryan
as Corporal Upham
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
It's Kind of a Funny Story
as Smitty
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Saving Private Ryan
as Corporal Upham
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Dogville
as Bill Henson
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Saving Private Ryan
as Corporal Upham
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. Jeremy Davies 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
31 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
9 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
Saving Private Ryan
as Corporal Upham
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dogville
as Bill Henson
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
It's Kind of a Funny Story
as Smitty
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Infernal Machine
as Elijah Barett
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Saving Private Ryan
as Corporal Upham
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Twister
as Laurence
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Ravenous
as Toffler
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Saving Private Ryan
as Corporal Upham
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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