Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20515
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Peter Sullivan 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.
Peter Sullivan appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Peter. Conspiracy is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with José Padilha, Juan Carlos Medina, Frank Pierson and others, Peter Sullivan 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.
Conspiracy (2001) as Karl Eberhard Schöngarth · The Jackal (1997) as Vasilov · The Limehouse Golem (2016) as Inspector Roberts
Career snapshot
Ranked #20515 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1997–2018
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Conspiracy
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Conspiracy
Most frequent director
José Padilha
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With José Padilha
Most common genre
Thriller
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
2000s
7.0 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Conspiracy — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.0
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Jackal.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.01 film | 5.82 films |
| Action | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | — | 6.03 films |
| Crime | 6.51 film | — | 6.11 film |
| Horror | — | — | 6.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997The Jackal
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Vasilov.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Conspiracy
7.0 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, as Amos Eiran.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
Directed by Frank Pierson
as Amos Eiran
Directed by José Padilha
as Inspector Roberts
Directed by Juan Carlos Medina
as Vasilov
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones
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
Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
Conspiracy (2001)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Karl Eberhard Schöngarth gives Peter Sullivan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Amos Eiran
7 Days in Entebbe (2018)
Performance score6.5
7 Days in Entebbe asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Amos Eiran is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Inspector Roberts
The Limehouse Golem (2016)
Performance score6.5
The Limehouse Golem asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Inspector Roberts is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
James Pryce
The Face of an Angel (2014)
Performance score6.5
The Face of an Angel asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. James Pryce 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 Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
Start here. Conspiracy is the clearest statement of what Peter Sullivan does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Peter 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 Jackal (1997)
A deliberate change of key after Conspiracy — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Face of an Angel (2014)
Keeps the thriller register of The Jackal but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Limehouse Golem (2016)
Keeps the thriller register of The Face of an Angel but asks for a colder reading of it.
7 Days in Entebbe (2018)
Keeps the thriller register of The Limehouse Golem but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably The Jackal
Frank Pierson
Director
1 film together
Notably Conspiracy
Juan Carlos Medina
Director
1 film together
Notably The Limehouse Golem
José Padilha
Director
1 film together
Notably 7 Days in Entebbe
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Frank Pierson
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ConspiracyMichael Caton-Jones
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 JackalJuan Carlos Medina
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 Limehouse GolemJosé Padilha
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
7 Days in EntebbeSix 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
Conspiracy
as Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Face of an Angel
as James Pryce
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Conspiracy
as Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Jackal
as Vasilov
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Conspiracy
as Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
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. Peter Sullivan 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
4 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 Limehouse Golem
as Inspector Roberts
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Jackal
as Vasilov
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Face of an Angel
as James Pryce
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Limehouse Golem
as Inspector Roberts
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Jackal
as Vasilov
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Jackal
as Vasilov
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Conspiracy
as Karl Eberhard Schöngarth
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Face of an Angel
as James Pryce
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Matt Damon
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Christian Bale
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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