Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#23303
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Philip Glenister works on quiet performance 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.
Philip Glenister appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Philip. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, music, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ed Bye, Woody Allen, Ridley Scott and others, Philip Glenister 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.
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again (2019) as Pierce Brosnan · Kingdom of Heaven (2005) as Squire · Calendar Girls (2003) as Lawrence Sertain
Career snapshot
Ranked #23303 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2003–2019
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
Most frequent director
Ed Bye
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ed Bye
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
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
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Kingdom of Heaven, Calendar Girls — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Kingdom of Heaven, Calendar Girls.
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 | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 5.62 films |
| Action | 7.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.82 films |
| Romance | — | 5.62 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2003Calendar Girls
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Lawrence Sertain.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2019Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
7.6 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. The current state of the argument, as Pierce Brosnan.
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 Squire
Directed by Ridley Scott
as Lawrence Sertain
Directed by Nigel Cole
as Poker Friend
Directed by Woody Allen
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
Pierce Brosnan
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again (2019)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pierce Brosnan gives Philip Glenister a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Squire
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Performance score7.1
Kingdom of Heaven asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Squire is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Lawrence Sertain
Calendar Girls (2003)
Performance score6.7
Calendar Girls asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lawrence Sertain is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Charles Forestier
Bel Ami (2012)
Performance score6.5
Bel Ami asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Charles Forestier 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 Pierce Brosnan
Start here. Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again is the clearest statement of what Philip Glenister does — accessible, 14 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Philip 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.
Calendar Girls (2003)
Keeps the comedy register of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Calendar Girls but asks for a colder reading of it.
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
Keeps the drama register of Kingdom of Heaven but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bel Ami (2012)
Keeps the romance register of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Nigel Cole
Director
1 film together
Notably Calendar Girls
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Kingdom of Heaven
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Ed Bye
Director
1 film together
Notably Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ed Bye
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet AgainRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kingdom of HeavenNigel Cole
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Calendar GirlsWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You Will Meet a Tall Dark StrangerSix 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
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Bel Ami
as Charles Forestier
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
as Pierce Brosnan
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
as Pierce Brosnan
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. Philip Glenister 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
4 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
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
as Pierce Brosnan
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bel Ami
as Charles Forestier
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Yet Again
as Pierce Brosnan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Kingdom of Heaven
as Squire
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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