Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#84979
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Robert Blake represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 51 years in, and Robert is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Robert Blake appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre 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 drama, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, comedy, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Richard Brooks, George Stevens, John Huston and others, Robert Blake 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.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited) · In Cold Blood (1967) as Perry Smith · The Woman in the Window (1944) as Dickie Wanley
Career snapshot
Ranked #84979 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1944–1995
Career length
51 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Most frequent director
Richard Brooks
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Richard Brooks
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
2h 14m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
7.0
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
1940s
7.3 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Woman in the Window — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1940s
7.7
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Woman in the Window.
Most productive era
1940s
2 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 | 1940s | 1960s | 1990s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.32 films | 6.82 films | — |
| Action | — | — | 5.91 film |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.91 film |
| Crime | 7.01 film | 7.11 film | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dickie Wanley.
Highest rated performance
1948The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
1967In Cold Blood
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1995Money Train
The current state of the argument, as Donald Patterson.
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 Perry Smith
Directed by Richard Brooks
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
Directed by John Huston
as Dickie Wanley
Directed by Fritz Lang
as Donald Patterson
Directed by Unknown
as Simon the Zealot
Directed by George Stevens
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
Perry Smith
In Cold Blood (1967)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Perry Smith gives Robert Blake a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Performance score7.4
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dickie Wanley
The Woman in the Window (1944)
Performance score6.9
The Woman in the Window asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dickie Wanley is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Donald Patterson
Money Train (1995)
Performance score6.5
Money Train asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Donald Patterson 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 Perry Smith
Start here. In Cold Blood is the clearest statement of what Robert Blake does — accessible, 134 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Robert 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 Woman in the Window (1944)
Keeps the crime register of In Cold Blood but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Keeps the drama register of The Woman in the Window but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
Keeps the drama register of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre but asks for a colder reading of it.
Money Train (1995)
A deliberate change of key after The Greatest Story Ever Told — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably The Woman in the Window
John Huston
Director
1 film together
Notably The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
George Stevens
Director
1 film together
Notably The Greatest Story Ever Told
Richard Brooks
Director
1 film together
Notably In Cold Blood
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Huston
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Treasure of the Sierra MadreRichard Brooks
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In Cold BloodFritz Lang
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Woman in the WindowGeorge Stevens
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Greatest Story Ever ToldSix 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
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
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 Greatest Story Ever Told
as Simon the Zealot
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Greatest Story Ever Told
as Simon the Zealot
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
In Cold Blood
as Perry Smith
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. Robert Blake 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
51 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
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
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Woman in the Window
as Dickie Wanley
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Greatest Story Ever Told
as Simon the Zealot
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Woman in the Window
as Dickie Wanley
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
as Mexican Boy Selling Lottery Tickets (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Money Train
as Donald Patterson
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Edward Norton
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Have your say
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Reference
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