Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#42872
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Leslie Howard represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 86 years in, and Leslie is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Leslie Howard appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Leslie. Gone with the Wind is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for documentary, war, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Lean, Michael Powell, Victor Fleming and others, Leslie Howard 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.
Gone with the Wind (1939) as Ashley Wilkes · Churchill and the Movie Mogul (2019) as Self (archive footage) · The Petrified Forest (1936) as Alan Squier
Career snapshot
Ranked #42872 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
1934–2020
Career length
86 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Gone with the Wind
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Gone with the Wind
Most frequent director
David Lean
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David Lean
Most common genre
War
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.9
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
2010s
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Churchill and the Movie Mogul — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Gone with the Wind, The Petrified Forest, The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Most productive era
1930s
3 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 | 1930s | 1940s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.13 films | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Crime | 6.81 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | 7.32 films | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sir Percy Blakeney / The Scarlet Pimpernel.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.9 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
2020Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests
The current state of the argument, as Self (archive footage).
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.
7 of 7 films
as Ashley Wilkes
Directed by Victor Fleming
as Alan Squier
Directed by Archie Mayo
as Philip Armstrong Scott
Directed by Michael Powell
as Sir Percy Blakeney / The Scarlet Pimpernel
Directed by Harold Young
as Self (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
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
Ashley Wilkes
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ashley Wilkes gives Leslie Howard a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Alan Squier
The Petrified Forest (1936)
Performance score7.4
The Petrified Forest asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alan Squier is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Philip Armstrong Scott
49th Parallel (1941)
Performance score7.3
49th Parallel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Philip Armstrong Scott is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sir Percy Blakeney / The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Performance score7.3
The Scarlet Pimpernel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sir Percy Blakeney / The Scarlet Pimpernel 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 Ashley Wilkes
Start here. Gone with the Wind is the clearest statement of what Leslie Howard does — accessible, 238 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Leslie 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.
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
Keeps the drama register of Gone with the Wind but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Petrified Forest (1936)
Keeps the drama register of The Scarlet Pimpernel but asks for a colder reading of it.
49th Parallel (1941)
Keeps the thriller register of The Petrified Forest but asks for a colder reading of it.
Churchill and the Movie Mogul (2019)
Keeps the war register of 49th Parallel but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Harold Young
Director
1 film together
Notably The Scarlet Pimpernel
Archie Mayo
Director
1 film together
Notably The Petrified Forest
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Gone with the Wind
Michael Powell
Director
1 film together
Notably 49th Parallel
David Lean
Director
1 film together
Notably In Which We Serve
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gone with the WindArchie Mayo
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Petrified ForestMichael Powell
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
49th ParallelHarold Young
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Scarlet PimpernelDavid Lean
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In Which We ServeSix 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
49th Parallel
as Philip Armstrong Scott
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
In Which We Serve
as Narrator (voice) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
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. Leslie Howard 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
86 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.
War Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in war, 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
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Petrified Forest
as Alan Squier
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Scarlet Pimpernel
as Sir Percy Blakeney / The Scarlet Pimpernel
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Gone with the Wind
as Ashley Wilkes
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gone with the Wind – Makeup and Wardrobe Tests
as Self (archive footage)
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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