Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#381
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Peter Weller represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and Peter is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Peter Weller appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Peter. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 comedy, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Fincher, Ekachai Uekrongtham, Jay Oliva and others, Peter Weller 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.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2013) as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice) · Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 (2012) as Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice) · Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (2013) as Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #381 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1984–2026
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Most frequent director
Jay Oliva
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Jay Oliva
Most common genre
Action
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
6.6
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
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Skin Trade, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2, Star Trek Into Darkness — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Leviathan, RoboCop, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.01 film | 5.71 film | 5.72 films | 0.01 film |
| Action | 7.41 film | 6.01 film | — | 7.06 films | 6.61 film |
| Thriller | 6.72 films | 6.01 film | 5.82 films | 6.11 film | 3.32 films |
| Comedy | 6.01 film | — | — | — | 0.01 film |
| Crime | — | 6.52 films | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | 6.01 film | — | 5.71 film | — | — |
| Horror | 6.01 film | 6.31 film | 5.81 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1984The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Buckaroo Banzai.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2013Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
8.1 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
2026The Adventures of Cliff Booth
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.
16 of 16 films
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
Directed by Jay Oliva
as Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice)
Directed by Jay Oliva
as Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice)
Directed by Jay Oliva
as Officer Alex J. Murphy / RoboCop
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
as Bill Lee
Directed by David Cronenberg
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
Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (2013)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice) gives Peter Weller a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice)
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 (2012)
Performance score8.2
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice)
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (2013)
Performance score8.1
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Batman / Bruce Wayne (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Officer Alex J. Murphy / RoboCop
RoboCop (1987)
Performance score8.0
RoboCop asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Officer Alex J. Murphy / RoboCop 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 Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
Start here. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is the clearest statement of what Peter Weller does — accessible, 148 minutes, and rated 8.1 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.
RoboCop (1987)
Keeps the action register of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns but asks for a colder reading of it.
Naked Lunch (1991)
A deliberate change of key after RoboCop — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1 (2012)
A deliberate change of key after Naked Lunch — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2 (2013)
Same director as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jay Oliva
Director
3 films together
Notably Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
W.D. Richter
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Paul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together
Notably RoboCop
George P. Cosmatos
Director
1 film together
Notably Leviathan
Irvin Kershner
Director
1 film together
Notably RoboCop 2
David Cronenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Naked Lunch
Christian Duguay
Director
1 film together
Notably Screamers
Brian Helgeland
Director
1 film together
Notably The Order
Darrell James Roodt
Director
1 film together
Notably Prey
John Hyams
Director
1 film together
Notably Dragon Eyes
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek Into Darkness
Ekachai Uekrongtham
Director
1 film together
Notably Skin Trade
David Fincher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adventures of Cliff Booth
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jay Oliva
Director
3 films together · 7.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Batman: The Dark Knight ReturnsPaul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RoboCopJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek Into DarknessDavid Cronenberg
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Naked LunchChristian Duguay
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ScreamersEkachai Uekrongtham
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Skin TradeIrvin Kershner
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RoboCop 2George P. Cosmatos
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LeviathanW.D. Richter
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 Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th DimensionDarrell James Roodt
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PreyBrian Helgeland
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The OrderJohn Hyams
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dragon EyesDavid Fincher
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Six 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
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
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 Order
as Driscoll
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Star Trek Into Darkness
as Admiral Alexander Marcus
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
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 Weller 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
42 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
9 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
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Order
as Driscoll
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Order
as Driscoll
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
as Bruce Wayne / Batman (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Trek Into Darkness
as Admiral Alexander Marcus
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Naked Lunch
as Bill Lee
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Screamers
as Colonel Hendricksson
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Morgan Freeman
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Zach Grenier
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Richmond Arquette
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Bob Stephenson
Works with the same directors — David Fincher
Have your say
Community
Which Peter Weller performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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