Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#320
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Matt Smith 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.
Matt Smith appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Matt. The Big Night In is the clearest case: a film rated 9.0 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 action, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Shawn Levy, Darren Aronofsky, Daniel Espinosa and others, Matt Smith 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 Big Night In (2020) as Self · Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song (2015) as The Doctor (11) (picture) (uncredited) · Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010) as The Doctor
Career snapshot
Ranked #320 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
2010–2027
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.0
The Big Night In
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.0
The Big Night In
Most frequent director
Shawn Levy
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Shawn Levy
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
6.5
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Mapplethorpe, Charlie Says, Official Secrets — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 13 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Mapplethorpe, Charlie Says, Official Secrets.
Most productive era
2010s
13 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.89 films | 6.34 films |
| Action | 5.72 films | 3.02 films |
| Thriller | 6.15 films | 7.02 films |
| Comedy | 7.12 films | 7.92 films |
| Crime | 5.91 film | 6.81 film |
| Romance | 6.22 films | — |
| Horror | 5.82 films | 6.53 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010Womb
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Thomas.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The Big Night In
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.0 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
The current state of the argument.
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.
22 of 22 films
as Self
Directed by Unknown
as The Doctor
Directed by Toby Haynes
as The Doctor (11)
Directed by Nick Hurran
as The Doctor
Directed by Saul Metzstein
as The Doctor (11)
Directed by Jamie Payne
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
Self
The Big Night In (2020)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Matt Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
The Doctor
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010)
Performance score8.5
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Doctor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
The Doctor (11)
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (2013)
Performance score8.2
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Doctor (11) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
The Doctor
Doctor Who: The Snowmen (2012)
Performance score8.2
Doctor Who: The Snowmen asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Doctor 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 Self
Start here. The Big Night In is the clearest statement of what Matt Smith does — accessible, 179 minutes, and rated 9.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Matt 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.
Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol (2010)
A deliberate change of key after The Big Night In — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Doctor Who: The Snowmen (2012)
Keeps the science fiction register of Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol but asks for a colder reading of it.
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (2013)
Keeps the science fiction register of Doctor Who: The Snowmen but asks for a colder reading of it.
Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor (2013)
Keeps the science fiction register of Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Toby Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol
Saul Metzstein
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Who: The Snowmen
Jamie Payne
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor
Nick Hurran
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor
Douglas Mackinnon
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song
Ryan Gosling
Director
1 film together
Notably Lost River
Alan Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Terminator Genisys
Burr Steers
Director
1 film together
Notably Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Gavin Hood
Director
1 film together
Notably Official Secrets
Mary Harron
Director
1 film together
Notably Charlie Says
Ondi Timoner
Director
1 film together
Notably Mapplethorpe
Edgar Wright
Director
1 film together
Notably Last Night in Soho
Daniel Espinosa
Director
1 film together
Notably Morbius
Darren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Caught Stealing
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: Starfighter
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Douglas Mackinnon
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor Who: The Husbands of River SongToby Haynes
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor Who: A Christmas CarolNick Hurran
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor Who: The Day of the DoctorSaul Metzstein
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor Who: The SnowmenJamie Payne
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor Who: The Time of the DoctorEdgar Wright
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Last Night in SohoGavin 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 SecretsDarren Aronofsky
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Caught StealingOndi Timoner
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MapplethorpeBurr Steers
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pride and Prejudice and ZombiesAlan Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Terminator GenisysDaniel Espinosa
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MorbiusMary Harron
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Charlie SaysRyan Gosling
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lost RiverShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: StarfighterSix 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 Big Night In
as Self
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 Martin Bright
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 Big Night In
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Big Night In
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Big Night In
as Self
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. Matt Smith 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.
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 Big Night In
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Big Night In
as Self
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Official Secrets
as Martin Bright
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Last Night in Soho
as Jack
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Big Night In
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: Starfighter
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Official Secrets
as Martin Bright
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Forgiven
as Richard Galloway
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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