Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#726
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Liam Cunningham 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.
Liam Cunningham appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Liam. The Wind & the Reckoning is the clearest case: a film rated 9.5 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 music, drama, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Philipp Stölzl, Annemarie Jacir, André Øvredal and others, Liam Cunningham 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.
The Wind & the Reckoning (2022) as Honolulu Rifle · Palestine 36 (2025) as Charles Tegart · War Horse (2011) as Army Doctor
Career snapshot
Ranked #726 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
2005–2026
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.5
The Wind & the Reckoning
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.5
The Wind & the Reckoning
Most frequent director
Philipp Stölzl
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Philipp Stölzl
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Tournament, Harry Brown, Hunger — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
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. The Tournament, Harry Brown, Hunger.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 7.14 films | 6.64 films | 6.15 films |
| Action | 6.13 films | 6.24 films | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | 6.42 films | 6.43 films | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | — | — |
| Crime | 6.81 film | 6.71 film | — |
| Horror | 6.01 film | — | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as 1st Biker.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.5 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
2026Irish Goodbye
The current state of the argument, as Father.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Honolulu Rifle
Directed by Unknown
as Charles Tegart
Directed by Annemarie Jacir
as Priest
Directed by Steve McQueen
as Army Doctor
Directed by Steven Spielberg
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
Honolulu Rifle
The Wind & the Reckoning (2022)
Performance score9.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Honolulu Rifle gives Liam Cunningham a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Charles Tegart
Palestine 36 (2025)
Performance score7.6
Palestine 36 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Charles Tegart is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Priest
Hunger (2008)
Performance score7.6
Hunger asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Priest is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dan
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
Performance score7.6
The Wind That Shakes the Barley asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dan 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 Honolulu Rifle
Start here. The Wind & the Reckoning is the clearest statement of what Liam Cunningham does — accessible, 94 minutes, and rated 9.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Liam 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 Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)
Keeps the drama register of The Wind & the Reckoning but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hunger (2008)
Keeps the drama register of The Wind That Shakes the Barley but asks for a colder reading of it.
War Horse (2011)
Keeps the drama register of Hunger but asks for a colder reading of it.
Palestine 36 (2025)
Keeps the war register of War Horse but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Neil Jordan
Director
1 film together
Notably Breakfast on Pluto
Ken Loach
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Rob Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Steve McQueen
Director
1 film together
Notably Hunger
Scott Mann
Director
1 film together
Notably The Tournament
Louis Leterrier
Director
1 film together
Notably Clash of the Titans
Larysa Kondracki
Director
1 film together
Notably The Whistleblower
Neil Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Centurion
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably War Horse
Daniel Espinosa
Director
1 film together
Notably Safe House
Brady Corbet
Director
1 film together
Notably The Childhood of a Leader
Jeanie Finlay
Director
1 film together
Notably Game of Thrones: The Last Watch
Jaume Balagueró
Director
1 film together
Notably The Vault
André Øvredal
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Voyage of the Demeter
Annemarie Jacir
Director
1 film together
Notably Palestine 36
Philipp Stölzl
Director
1 film together
Notably The Physician II
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Annemarie Jacir
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Palestine 36Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
War HorseKen Loach
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 Wind That Shakes the BarleySteve McQueen
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HungerNeil Jordan
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Breakfast on PlutoJeanie Finlay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Game of Thrones: The Last WatchJaume Balagueró
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 VaultAndré Øvredal
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 Last Voyage of the DemeterLarysa Kondracki
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 WhistleblowerPhilipp Stölzl
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Physician IIDaniel Espinosa
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Safe HouseNeil Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CenturionBrady Corbet
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Childhood of a LeaderScott Mann
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The TournamentLouis Leterrier
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Clash of the TitansRob Cohen
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon EmperorSix 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
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Hunger
as Priest
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
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. Liam Cunningham 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
21 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
13 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
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Hunger
as Priest
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Physician II
as Canute
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Centurion
as Brick
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Wind & the Reckoning
as Honolulu Rifle
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
24 Hours to Live
as Wetzler
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Robert Downey Jr.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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