Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7269
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Richard Durden represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 35 years in, and Richard is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Richard Durden appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Richard. Batman 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 drama, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ben Taylor, J.J. Abrams, Toby Haynes and others, Richard Durden 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 (1989) as TV Director · Agora (2009) as Olympius · Joy (2024) as Sir Norman Jeffcoate
Career snapshot
Ranked #7269 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1989–2024
Career length
35 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Batman
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Batman
Most frequent director
Ben Taylor
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ben Taylor
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
6.7
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
1980s
7.3 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Batman — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.2
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. Batman.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.93 films | 6.42 films | 6.91 film |
| Action | 7.31 film | — | 6.32 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.91 film | 6.41 film | — |
| Crime | 7.31 film | 6.81 film | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1989Batman
Where our catalogue meets this career, as TV Director. 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
2024Joy
The current state of the argument, as Sir Norman Jeffcoate.
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.
9 of 9 films
as TV Director
Directed by Tim Burton
as Sir Norman Jeffcoate
Directed by Ben Taylor
as Dr. Hale
Directed by John Maybury
as Board Member
Directed by Roman Polanski
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
TV Director
Batman (1989)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. TV Director gives Richard Durden a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Olympius
Agora (2009)
Performance score6.9
Agora asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Olympius is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sir Norman Jeffcoate
Joy (2024)
Performance score6.8
Joy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sir Norman Jeffcoate is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dr. Hale
The Jacket (2005)
Performance score6.8
The Jacket asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Hale 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 TV Director
Start here. Batman is the clearest statement of what Richard Durden does — accessible, 126 minutes, and rated 7.3 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.
The Jacket (2005)
Keeps the fantasy register of Batman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Oliver Twist (2005)
Keeps the drama register of The Jacket but asks for a colder reading of it.
Agora (2009)
Keeps the drama register of Oliver Twist but asks for a colder reading of it.
Joy (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Agora but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Batman
Roman Polanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Oliver Twist
John Maybury
Director
1 film together
Notably The Jacket
Pierre Morel
Director
1 film together
Notably From Paris with Love
Jonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together
Notably Churchill
Toby Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably Brexit: The Uncivil War
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Ben Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Joy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BatmanBen Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
JoyJohn Maybury
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The JacketRoman Polanski
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Oliver TwistToby Haynes
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brexit: The Uncivil WarPierre Morel
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
From Paris with LoveJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Wars: The Rise of SkywalkerJonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ChurchillSix 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
as TV Director
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Agora
as Olympius
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
as TV Director
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
as First Order Officer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Batman
as TV Director
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. Richard Durden 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
35 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
6 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
The Jacket
as Dr. Hale
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Jacket
as Dr. Hale
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Agora
as Olympius
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Jacket
as Dr. Hale
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Batman
as TV Director
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
as First Order Officer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Churchill
as Jan Smuts
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Batman
as TV Director
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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