Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11190
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jim Sturgess 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.
Jim Sturgess appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jim. One Day is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Brian Ward, Natalie Erika James, Katie Holmes and others, Jim Sturgess 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.
One Day (2011) as Dexter Mayhew · The Way Back (2010) as Janusz Wieszczek · Stonehearst Asylum (2014) as Edward Newgate
Career snapshot
Ranked #11190 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
2008–2025
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
One Day
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
One Day
Most frequent director
Brian Ward
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Brian Ward
Most common genre
Drama
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
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
6.2
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
6.5 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Crossing Over, 21, The Other Boleyn Girl — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.5
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Crossing Over, 21, The Other Boleyn Girl.
Most productive era
2010s
11 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.37 films | 5.32 films |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.02 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 6.04 films | 5.82 films |
| Crime | 6.42 films | 5.52 films | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.82 films | 5.11 film |
| Horror | — | 6.91 film | 6.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
200821
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ben Campbell.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2011One Day
7.4 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
2025What is an Ocean… Reconnecting the Cast and Crew of Cloud Atlas
The current state of the argument, as Self - Interviewee.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Dexter Mayhew
Directed by Lone Scherfig
as Soren (voice)
Directed by Zack Snyder
as Janusz Wieszczek
Directed by Peter Weir
as Ben Campbell
Directed by Robert Luketic
as Edward Newgate
Directed by Brad Anderson
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
Dexter Mayhew
One Day (2011)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dexter Mayhew gives Jim Sturgess a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Soren (voice)
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)
Performance score7.4
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Soren (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Janusz Wieszczek
The Way Back (2010)
Performance score7.4
The Way Back asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Janusz Wieszczek is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ben Campbell
21 (2008)
Performance score7.4
21 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ben Campbell 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 Dexter Mayhew
Start here. One Day is the clearest statement of what Jim Sturgess does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jim 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.
21 (2008)
Keeps the drama register of One Day but asks for a colder reading of it.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)
A deliberate change of key after 21 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Way Back (2010)
Keeps the adventure register of Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole but asks for a colder reading of it.
Stonehearst Asylum (2014)
A deliberate change of key after The Way Back — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Kari Skogland
Director
1 film together
Notably Fifty Dead Men Walking
Justin Chadwick
Director
1 film together
Notably The Other Boleyn Girl
Robert Luketic
Director
1 film together
Notably 21
Wayne Kramer
Director
1 film together
Notably Crossing Over
Peter Weir
Director
1 film together
Notably The Way Back
Zack Snyder
Director
1 film together
Notably Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Lone Scherfig
Director
1 film together
Notably One Day
Lilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together
Notably Cloud Atlas
Brad Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Stonehearst Asylum
Dean Devlin
Director
1 film together
Notably Geostorm
Josef Rusnak
Director
1 film together
Notably Berlin, I Love You
Katie Holmes
Director
1 film together
Notably Alone Together
Natalie Erika James
Director
1 film together
Notably Apartment 7A
Brian Ward
Director
1 film together
Notably What is an Ocean… Reconnecting the Cast and Crew of Cloud Atlas
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lone Scherfig
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One DayPeter Weir
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Way BackBrad Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Stonehearst AsylumLilly Wachowski
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cloud AtlasZack Snyder
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'HooleRobert Luketic
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
21Justin Chadwick
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Other Boleyn GirlKari Skogland
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fifty Dead Men WalkingNatalie Erika James
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Apartment 7ADean Devlin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GeostormWayne Kramer
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crossing OverKatie Holmes
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alone TogetherJosef Rusnak
Director
1 film together · 4.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Berlin, I Love YouBrian Ward
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What is an Ocean… Reconnecting the Cast and Crew of Cloud AtlasSix 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
One Day
as Dexter Mayhew
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
One Day
as Dexter Mayhew
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
One Day
as Dexter Mayhew
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Berlin, I Love You
as Jared
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
One Day
as Dexter Mayhew
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. Jim Sturgess 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
12 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
Stonehearst Asylum
as Edward Newgate
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Stonehearst Asylum
as Edward Newgate
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Alone Together
as Charlie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Stonehearst Asylum
as Edward Newgate
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Way Back
as Janusz Wieszczek
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kidnapping Mr. Heineken
as Cor Van Hout
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
as Soren (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
21
as Ben Campbell
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Jim Sturgess 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
