Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#42007
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jimmie Ray Weeks 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.
Jimmie Ray Weeks appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jimmie. Requiem for a Dream is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 war, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gregor Jordan, Darren Aronofsky, Harold Ramis and others, Jimmie Ray Weeks 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.
Requiem for a Dream (2000) as Prison Guard · The Abyss (1989) as Leland McBride · Dead Man (1995) as Marvin, Older Marshal
Career snapshot
Ranked #42007 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1988–2002
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Requiem for a Dream
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Requiem for a Dream
Most frequent director
Gregor Jordan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Gregor Jordan
Most common genre
Crime
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.5
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
7.2 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Buffalo Soldiers, Requiem for a Dream — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Abyss, Frantic, Midnight Run.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.71 film | 6.82 films | 7.22 films |
| Action | — | 6.52 films | — |
| Thriller | 7.22 films | 6.31 film | 6.31 film |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | 6.62 films | 6.31 film |
| Crime | 6.82 films | 6.42 films | 7.22 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1988Frantic
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shaap.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.1 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
2002Buffalo Soldiers
The current state of the argument, as Colonel Armstrong.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Leland McBride
Directed by James Cameron
as Marvin, Older Marshal
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
as F.B.I. Agent Tuttle
Directed by Martin Brest
as Amish Man
Directed by Jim Abrahams
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
Prison Guard
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Prison Guard gives Jimmie Ray Weeks a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leland McBride
The Abyss (1989)
Performance score7.2
The Abyss asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leland McBride is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Marvin, Older Marshal
Dead Man (1995)
Performance score7.1
Dead Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marvin, Older Marshal is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
F.B.I. Agent Tuttle
Midnight Run (1988)
Performance score6.9
Midnight Run asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. F.B.I. Agent Tuttle 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 Prison Guard
Start here. Requiem for a Dream is the clearest statement of what Jimmie Ray Weeks does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jimmie 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.
Midnight Run (1988)
Keeps the crime register of Requiem for a Dream but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Abyss (1989)
Keeps the thriller register of Midnight Run but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hot Shots! (1991)
A deliberate change of key after The Abyss — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dead Man (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Hot Shots! — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Brest
Director
1 film together
Notably Midnight Run
Roman Polanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Frantic
James Cameron
Director
1 film together
Notably The Abyss
Jim Abrahams
Director
1 film together
Notably Hot Shots!
Jim Jarmusch
Director
1 film together
Notably Dead Man
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably The Siege
Harold Ramis
Director
1 film together
Notably Analyze This
Darren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Requiem for a Dream
Gregor Jordan
Director
1 film together
Notably Buffalo Soldiers
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Darren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Requiem for a DreamJames Cameron
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 AbyssJim Jarmusch
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dead ManMartin Brest
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Midnight RunJim Abrahams
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hot Shots!Roman Polanski
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FranticHarold Ramis
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Analyze ThisGregor Jordan
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Buffalo SoldiersEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The SiegeSix 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
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Dead Man
as Marvin, Older Marshal
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
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. Jimmie Ray Weeks 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.
Crime Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Dead Man
as Marvin, Older Marshal
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Frantic
as Shaap
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Requiem for a Dream
as Prison Guard
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Siege
as Army General
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Buffalo Soldiers
as Colonel Armstrong
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hot Shots!
as Amish Man
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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