Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7941
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Kenneth Cranham represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 51 years in, and Kenneth is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Kenneth Cranham appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Kenneth. Hot Fuzz is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 drama, history, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Agnieszka Holland, Gavin Hood, Paul McGuigan and others, Kenneth Cranham 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.
Hot Fuzz (2007) as James Reaper · Official Secrets (2019) as Judge Hyam · Maleficent (2014) as King Henry
Career snapshot
Ranked #7941 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1968–2019
Career length
51 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Hot Fuzz
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Hot Fuzz
Most frequent director
Paul McGuigan
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Paul McGuigan
Most common genre
Drama
10 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
6.9
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
6.9
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
2000s
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Valkyrie, Hot Fuzz, A Good Year — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Oliver!.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 | 1960s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 6.84 films | 6.55 films |
| Action | — | 7.12 films | 5.92 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.83 films | 7.02 films |
| Comedy | — | 7.22 films | 6.71 film |
| Crime | — | 7.03 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.71 film | 6.82 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1968Oliver!
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Noah Claypole.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2007Hot Fuzz
7.7 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
2019Official Secrets
The current state of the argument, as Judge Hyam.
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 James Reaper
Directed by Edgar Wright
as Judge Hyam
Directed by Gavin Hood
as King Henry
Directed by Robert Stromberg
as Lloyd George
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
as Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
Directed by Bryan Singer
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
James Reaper
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. James Reaper gives Kenneth Cranham a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Judge Hyam
Official Secrets (2019)
Performance score7.1
Official Secrets asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Judge Hyam is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
King Henry
Maleficent (2014)
Performance score7.0
Maleficent asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. King Henry is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lloyd George
Mr. Jones (2019)
Performance score6.9
Mr. Jones asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lloyd George 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 James Reaper
Start here. Hot Fuzz is the clearest statement of what Kenneth Cranham does — accessible, 121 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Kenneth 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.
Valkyrie (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Hot Fuzz — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Maleficent (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Valkyrie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Official Secrets (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Maleficent — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Mr. Jones (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Official Secrets but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Renny Harlin
Director
2 films together
Notably 5 Days of War
Paul McGuigan
Director
2 films together
Notably Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
Carol Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably Oliver!
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together
Notably Layer Cake
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably A Good Year
Edgar Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Hot Fuzz
Bryan Singer
Director
1 film together
Notably Valkyrie
Nigel Cole
Director
1 film together
Notably Made in Dagenham
Robert Stromberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent
Gavin Hood
Director
1 film together
Notably Official Secrets
Agnieszka Holland
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Jones
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul McGuigan
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Film Stars Don't Die in LiverpoolRenny Harlin
Director
2 films together · 5.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
5 Days of WarEdgar Wright
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hot FuzzGavin Hood
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Official SecretsRobert Stromberg
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaleficentBryan Singer
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ValkyrieMatthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Layer CakeCarol Reed
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Oliver!Agnieszka Holland
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. JonesNigel Cole
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Made in DagenhamRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Good YearSix 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
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Official Secrets
as Judge Hyam
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Official Secrets
as Judge Hyam
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
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. Kenneth Cranham 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
51 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
10 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
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Mr. Jones
as Lloyd George
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Layer Cake
as Jimmy Price
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Legend of Hercules
as Lucius
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Made in Dagenham
as Monty Taylor
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hot Fuzz
as James Reaper
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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