Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#38792
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
John Robinson 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.
John Robinson appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without John. Lords of Dogtown is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gus Van Sant, Céline Sallette, Michael Angarano and others, John Robinson 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.
Lords of Dogtown (2005) as Stacy · Transformers (2007) as Miles · Dead Man's Wire (2026) as Cameraman
Career snapshot
Ranked #38792 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2004–2026
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Lords of Dogtown
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Lords of Dogtown
Most frequent director
Gus Van Sant
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Gus Van Sant
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
6.3
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
2000s
6.3 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Transformers, Seraphim Falls, .45 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.3
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.3
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. Transformers, Seraphim Falls, .45.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 6.14 films | 6.11 film | 6.24 films |
| Action | 6.83 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 5.11 film | — | 6.32 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.01 film |
| Crime | 5.11 film | — | 6.51 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2004The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Aaron.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2005Lords of Dogtown
7.1 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
2026Dead Man's Wire
The current state of the argument, as Cameraman.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Stacy
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
as Miles
Directed by Michael Bay
as Harry Matthews
Directed by Céline Sallette
as Cameraman
Directed by Gus Van Sant
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
Stacy
Lords of Dogtown (2005)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Stacy gives John Robinson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Miles
Transformers (2007)
Performance score6.9
Transformers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Miles is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Harry Matthews
Niki (2024)
Performance score6.7
Niki asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harry Matthews is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cameraman
Dead Man's Wire (2026)
Performance score6.5
Dead Man's Wire asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cameraman 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 Stacy
Start here. Lords of Dogtown is the clearest statement of what John Robinson does — accessible, 107 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet John 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.
Transformers (2007)
Keeps the action register of Lords of Dogtown but asks for a colder reading of it.
The House (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Transformers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Niki (2024)
Keeps the drama register of The House but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dead Man's Wire (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Niki but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Asia Argento
Director
1 film together
Notably The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things
Catherine Hardwicke
Director
1 film together
Notably Lords of Dogtown
Gary Lennon
Director
1 film together
Notably .45
David Von Ancken
Director
1 film together
Notably Seraphim Falls
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Transformers
Michael Angarano
Director
1 film together
Notably Avenues
Céline Sallette
Director
1 film together
Notably Niki
Gus Van Sant
Director
1 film together
Notably Dead Man's Wire
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Catherine Hardwicke
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lords of DogtownMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TransformersGus Van Sant
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dead Man's WireDavid Von Ancken
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Seraphim FallsCéline Sallette
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NikiMichael Angarano
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AvenuesAsia Argento
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Heart Is Deceitful Above All ThingsGary Lennon
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
.45Six 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
Transformers
as Miles
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Niki
as Harry Matthews
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Lords of Dogtown
as Stacy
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transformers
as Miles
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Lords of Dogtown
as Stacy
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. John Robinson 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
22 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
Lords of Dogtown
as Stacy
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dead Man's Wire
as Cameraman
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Niki
as Harry Matthews
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Dead Man's Wire
as Cameraman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Transformers
as Miles
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers
as Miles
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Dead Man's Wire
as Cameraman
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Transformers
as Miles
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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