Richard Anderson

Performer

Richard Anderson

A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.

Born
Unknown
Active
1956–1993
Performances
7
In Nutevio
1956–1993
Known for
Gettysburg
Performer Score
7.1
  • Hall of Fame
  • Horror Icon
View filmography

Nutevio rank

#5904

of 909177 performers

Top 1%

Richard Anderson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Richard is still choosing the harder script.
Ranked #5904 of 909177 performers in the Nutevio catalogue. Recalculated automatically as titles and credits are imported.

The essay

Reading Richard Anderson

Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.

Why this performer matters

Richard Anderson appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Richard. Paths of Glory is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.

Signature style

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 war, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.

Legacy

Working with Ronald F. Maxwell, Robert Altman, Richard Fleischer and others, Richard Anderson 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.

Best known for

Paths of Glory (1957) as Maj. Saint-Auban · The Player (1992) as Richard Anderson · Forbidden Planet (1956) as Chief Engineer Quinn

Career snapshot

The career at a glance

Ranked #5904 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.

  • Films in Nutevio

    7

    1956–1993

  • Career length

    37 yrs

    Measured across our catalogue

  • Academy Awards

    Unknown

  • Oscar nominations

    Unknown

  • Highest Nutevio score

    8.1

    Paths of Glory

  • Average Nutevio score

    7.1

    Across catalogue work

  • Highest IMDb rating

    8.3

    Paths of Glory

  • Most frequent director

    Richard Fleischer

    2 films together

  • Longest collaboration

    With Richard Fleischer

  • Most common genre

    Drama

    5 titles

  • Average runtime

    2h 11m

    Across catalogue work

  • Golden Globe wins

    Unknown

Nutevio metric

Performer Score

Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.

Nutevio Performer Score

7.1

out of 10

A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.

  • Performance quality7.3
  • Consistency6.9
  • Emotional range7.3
  • Character transformation7.2
  • Cultural impact6.4
  • Iconic roles6.4
  • Career longevity9.3
  • Influence6.4
  • Awards recognition7.1
  • Rewatch value6.9

Nutevio metric

Influence Score

Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.

Nutevio Influence Score

7.0

out of 10

A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.

  • Cultural impact6.4

    How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.

  • Legacy7.4

    What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.

  • Industry recognition6.6

    Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.

  • Career longevity9.2

    Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.

  • Awards6.4

    Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.

  • Iconic performances6.8

    Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.

  • Influence on filmmakers6.1

    Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.

  • Influence on other actors6.7

    The reading other performers now have to answer.

Actor DNA

How they work on screen

A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.

  • Versatility99
  • Transformation99
  • Quiet performance97
  • Rewatchability69
  • Screen presence67
  • Drama64
  • Charisma61
  • Intensity59
  • Villain presence55
  • Emotional range50
  • Physical performance26
  • Action16
  • Comedy15

The shape of a career

Career evolution

Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.

6789101956195719591966197019921993
  • Nutevio
  • Performance score
  • IMDb

Peak years

Best era

Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.

Best decade

1950s

7.3 average MV

The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. Compulsion, Paths of Glory, Forbidden Planet — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.

Highest average Nutevio score

1950s

7.3

Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.

Highest average IMDb rating

1950s

7.5

The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.

Most awarded era

1950s

0 Academy Awards

Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Compulsion, Paths of Glory, Forbidden Planet.

Most productive era

1950s

3 films

The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.

Range, mapped

Career heatmap

Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.

The career concentrates in drama during the 1950s, and the scores hold there.
Genre1950s1960s1970s1990s
Drama
7.42 films
7.01 film
7.02 films
Thriller
6.71 film
7.01 film
7.21 film
Comedy
7.21 film
Crime
6.71 film
7.21 film
Horror
7.01 film

Chronology

Career timeline

Firsts and peaks

Career milestones

The turning points, in the order they happened.

  1. First film in Nutevio

    1956Forbidden Planet

    Where our catalogue meets this career, as Chief Engineer Quinn.

  2. Highest rated performance · Career peak

    1957Paths of Glory

    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.

  3. Most recent film

    1993Gettysburg

    The current state of the argument, as Maj. Gen. George G. Meade.

Our order

Performances ranked

Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.

1
Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory

1957 · War

1h 28m

8.3IMDb
2
Official poster for The Player (1992)

The Player

1992 · Mystery

2h 4m

7.2IMDb
3
Official poster for Forbidden Planet (1956)

Forbidden Planet

1956 · Science Fiction

1h 38m

7.3IMDb
4
Official poster for Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

Tora! Tora! Tora!

1970 · War

2h 24m

7.2IMDb
5
Official poster for Seconds (1966)

Seconds

1966 · Science Fiction

1h 47m

7.3IMDb
6
Official poster for Gettysburg (1993)

Gettysburg

1993 · War

4h 14m

7.0IMDb
7
Official poster for Compulsion (1959)

Compulsion

1959 · Crime

1h 43m

7.1IMDb

Every title

Filmography

Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.

Genre
Decade
Sort

7 of 7 films

Official poster for The Player (1992)

as Richard Anderson

Directed by Robert Altman

IMDb7.2Rotten Tomatoes72%Metacritic662h 4mMystery · Comedy · Crime · Drama · Thriller
View movie
Official poster for Seconds (1966)

as Dr. Innes

Directed by John Frankenheimer

IMDb7.3Rotten Tomatoes70%Metacritic691h 47mScience Fiction · Horror · Thriller
View movie
Official poster for Forbidden Planet (1956)

as Chief Engineer Quinn

Directed by Fred M. Wilcox

IMDb7.3Rotten Tomatoes71%Metacritic701h 38mScience Fiction · Adventure
View movie

From the library

Complete credits

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

Signature performances

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

#1

Maj. Saint-Auban

Paths of Glory (1957)

Performance score8.1

The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maj. Saint-Auban gives Richard Anderson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.

View movie
Official poster for The Player (1992)

#2

Richard Anderson

The Player (1992)

Performance score7.1

The Player asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Richard Anderson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.

View movie
Official poster for Seconds (1966)

#3

Dr. Innes

Seconds (1966)

Performance score7.1

Seconds asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Innes is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.

View movie
Official poster for Forbidden Planet (1956)

#4

Chief Engineer Quinn

Forbidden Planet (1956)

Performance score7.0

Forbidden Planet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Chief Engineer Quinn is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.

View movie

Start here

The movie journey

A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Best entry point

Paths of Glory

as Maj. Saint-Auban

Start here. Paths of Glory is the clearest statement of what Richard Anderson does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.

Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Richard 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.

  1. Official poster for Forbidden Planet (1956)

    Forbidden Planet (1956)

    A deliberate change of key after Paths of Glory — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.

  2. Official poster for Seconds (1966)

    Seconds (1966)

    Keeps the science fiction register of Forbidden Planet but asks for a colder reading of it.

  3. Official poster for Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

    Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)

    A deliberate change of key after Seconds — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.

  4. Official poster for The Player (1992)

    The Player (1992)

    Keeps the drama register of Tora! Tora! Tora! but asks for a colder reading of it.

Company kept

Frequent collaborators

The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.

Behind the camera

Director network

Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.

Six degrees

Connected through cinema

Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.

Categories of our own

Most rewatchable, most emotional, most influential

Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.

Most rewatchable

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory

as Maj. Saint-Auban

The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.

Most emotional performance

Official poster for Compulsion (1959)

Compulsion

as Max Steiner

Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.

Most influential performance

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory

as Maj. Saint-Auban

You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.

Best ensemble performance

Official poster for The Player (1992)

The Player

as Richard Anderson

Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.

Career defining performance

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory

as Maj. Saint-Auban

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

Lines that stay

You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. Richard Anderson has known it for a long time.

Nutevio Editors · On Paths of Glory

Head to head

Compare performers

Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.

Ours alone

Nutevio Honors

Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.

Career Achievement

Awarded

37 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.

Drama Legend

Awarded

5 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.

Our desk

Editor's picks

Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.

Best ending

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory

as Maj. Saint-Auban

The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.

Best opening

Official poster for The Player (1992)

The Player

as Richard Anderson

A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.

Most emotional

Official poster for Compulsion (1959)

Compulsion

as Max Steiner

The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.

Best twist

Official poster for The Player (1992)

The Player

as Richard Anderson

A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.

Best visual achievement

Official poster for Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory

as Maj. Saint-Auban

Images that would survive with the sound switched off.

Best action sequence

Official poster for Forbidden Planet (1956)

Forbidden Planet

as Chief Engineer Quinn

Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.

Best dialogue

Official poster for Gettysburg (1993)

Gettysburg

as Maj. Gen. George G. Meade

Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.

Most underrated film

Official poster for The Player (1992)

The Player

as Richard Anderson

The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.

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Reference

Quick facts

Born
Unknown
Years active
1956–1993
Known for
Gettysburg
Genres
War, Drama, History
Nutevio rank
#5904
of 909177 performers tracked

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