Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#117291
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Matthew Boulton 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.
Matthew Boulton appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Matthew. The 39 Steps 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 action, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Florey, Clarence Brown, Roy William Neill and others, Matthew Boulton 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 39 Steps (1935) as Fake Police Officer (uncredited) · National Velvet (1945) as Entry Official · A Christmas Carol (1938) as Charity Solicitor Twill
Career snapshot
Ranked #117291 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1935–1948
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The 39 Steps
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The 39 Steps
Most frequent director
Alfred Hitchcock
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Alfred Hitchcock
Most common genre
Thriller
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 26m
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
6.4
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
1930s
6.7 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. A Christmas Carol, Sabotage, Night Must Fall — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.7
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
7.0
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. A Christmas Carol, Sabotage, Night Must Fall.
Most productive era
1940s
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 | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | 6.81 film |
| Action | — | 6.21 film |
| Thriller | 6.73 films | 6.52 films |
| Crime | 6.61 film | 6.52 films |
| Horror | — | 6.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1935The 39 Steps
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Fake Police Officer (uncredited). 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
The current state of the argument, as British Inspector-General.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
as Superintendent Talbot
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
as Entry Official
Directed by Clarence Brown
as Inspector Gregson
Directed by Roy William Neill
as Official, Ministry of Home Security (uncredited)
Directed by Fritz Lang
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
Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Fake Police Officer (uncredited) gives Matthew Boulton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Superintendent Talbot
Sabotage (1937)
Performance score6.8
Sabotage asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Superintendent Talbot is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Entry Official
National Velvet (1945)
Performance score6.7
National Velvet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Entry Official is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Inspector Gregson
The Woman in Green (1945)
Performance score6.6
The Woman in Green asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Inspector Gregson 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 Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
Start here. The 39 Steps is the clearest statement of what Matthew Boulton does — accessible, 86 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Matthew 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.
Sabotage (1937)
Same director as The 39 Steps, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Ministry of Fear (1944)
Keeps the crime register of Sabotage but asks for a colder reading of it.
National Velvet (1945)
A deliberate change of key after Ministry of Fear — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Woman in Green (1945)
A deliberate change of key after National Velvet — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
2 films together
Notably The 39 Steps
Richard Thorpe
Director
1 film together
Notably Night Must Fall
Edwin L. Marin
Director
1 film together
Notably A Christmas Carol
Joe May
Director
1 film together
Notably The Invisible Man Returns
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably Ministry of Fear
Roy William Neill
Director
1 film together
Notably The Woman in Green
Clarence Brown
Director
1 film together
Notably National Velvet
Robert Florey
Director
1 film together
Notably Tarzan and the Mermaids
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The 39 StepsClarence Brown
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
National VelvetEdwin L. Marin
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 Christmas CarolFritz Lang
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ministry of FearRichard Thorpe
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night Must FallRoy William Neill
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Woman in GreenJoe May
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Invisible Man ReturnsRobert Florey
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tarzan and the MermaidsSix 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
National Velvet
as Entry Official
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Christmas Carol
as Charity Solicitor Twill
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 39 Steps
as Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
National Velvet
as Entry Official
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The 39 Steps
as Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
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. Matthew Boulton 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in thriller, 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 39 Steps
as Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The 39 Steps
as Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Christmas Carol
as Charity Solicitor Twill
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The 39 Steps
as Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Tarzan and the Mermaids
as British Inspector-General
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tarzan and the Mermaids
as British Inspector-General
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Sabotage
as Superintendent Talbot
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Tarzan and the Mermaids
as British Inspector-General
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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