Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#12336
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Nicholas Worth 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.
Nicholas Worth appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nicholas. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Radler, Sam Raimi, David Zucker and others, Nicholas Worth 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 Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988) as Thug #1 · No Way Out (1987) as Cup Breaker · Heartbreak Ridge (1986) as Jail Binger
Career snapshot
Ranked #12336 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1978–1993
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Most frequent director
Robert Radler
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Robert Radler
Most common genre
Action
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 43m
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
6.3
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
1970s
6.7 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Coma — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Coma.
Most productive era
1980s
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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | 6.01 film |
| Action | — | 5.62 films | 6.22 films |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 6.91 film | 6.22 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.23 films | — |
| Crime | — | 6.52 films | 6.01 film |
| Horror | 6.71 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1978Coma
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1988The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
7.3 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 Sick Humor.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Cup Breaker
Directed by Roger Donaldson
as Jail Binger
Directed by Clint Eastwood
as Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited)
Directed by Michael Crichton
as Sick Humor
Directed by Robert Radler
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
Thug #1
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Thug #1 gives Nicholas Worth a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cup Breaker
No Way Out (1987)
Performance score6.8
No Way Out asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cup Breaker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jail Binger
Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
Performance score6.7
Heartbreak Ridge asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jail Binger is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited)
Coma (1978)
Performance score6.6
Coma asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited) 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 Thug #1
Start here. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! is the clearest statement of what Nicholas Worth does — accessible, 86 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nicholas 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.
Coma (1978)
A deliberate change of key after The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
A deliberate change of key after Coma — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
No Way Out (1987)
Keeps the drama register of Heartbreak Ridge but asks for a colder reading of it.
Best of the Best 2 (1993)
Keeps the drama register of No Way Out but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Crichton
Director
1 film together
Notably Coma
Mark L. Lester
Director
1 film together
Notably Armed and Dangerous
Clint Eastwood
Director
1 film together
Notably Heartbreak Ridge
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably No Way Out
Craig R. Baxley
Director
1 film together
Notably Action Jackson
David Zucker
Director
1 film together
Notably The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
Sam Raimi
Director
1 film together
Notably Darkman
Robert Radler
Director
1 film together
Notably Best of the Best 2
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Zucker
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 Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
No Way OutClint Eastwood
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heartbreak RidgeMichael Crichton
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ComaSam Raimi
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DarkmanRobert Radler
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Best of the Best 2Mark L. Lester
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Armed and DangerousCraig R. Baxley
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Action JacksonSix 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
Heartbreak Ridge
as Jail Binger
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
No Way Out
as Cup Breaker
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 Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
as Thug #1
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Coma
as Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
as Thug #1
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. Nicholas Worth 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in action, 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
Coma
as Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Coma
as Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
No Way Out
as Cup Breaker
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Coma
as Patterson Institute Chief of Security (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
as Thug #1
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Best of the Best 2
as Sick Humor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Heartbreak Ridge
as Jail Binger
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
No Way Out
as Cup Breaker
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
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Reference
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