Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7853
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Robert Carradine represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 54 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 Carradine appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. Django Unchained is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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, horror, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Christopher Ray, Elizabeth Guest, Bob Cook and others, Robert Carradine 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.
Django Unchained (2012) as Tracker · The Player (1992) as Robert Carradine · Mean Streets (1973) as Boy With Gun
Career snapshot
Ranked #7853 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1972–2026
Career length
54 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Django Unchained
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Django Unchained
Most frequent director
John Carpenter
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With John Carpenter
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
6.6
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
1970s
6.7 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Coming Home, Orca, Mean Streets — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
6.7
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Coming Home, Orca, Mean Streets.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.83 films | 6.62 films | 7.21 film | 6.31 film | 7.52 films | — |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.61 film | 5.91 film | 5.82 films | 6.51 film | 5.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | — | 6.62 films | — | — | 5.71 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.72 films | — | 3.82 films | 2.24 films |
| Crime | 7.01 film | 6.61 film | 7.21 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | — | — | 6.31 film | — | 0.01 film |
| Horror | 6.31 film | — | 6.21 film | 5.21 film | — | 3.83 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1972The Cowboys
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cowboy Slim Honeycutt.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2012Django Unchained
8.4 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
2026Desert Fiends 2
The current state of the argument, as Officer Don.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Tracker
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Frank James
Directed by Unknown
as Robert Carradine
Directed by Robert Altman
as Zab
Directed by Samuel Fuller
as Bob Younger
Directed by Walter Hill
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
Tracker
Django Unchained (2012)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tracker gives Robert Carradine a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Frank James
Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws (2019)
Performance score7.2
Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frank James is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Robert Carradine
The Player (1992)
Performance score7.1
The Player asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robert Carradine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Zab
The Big Red One (1980)
Performance score7.0
The Big Red One asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Zab 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 Tracker
Start here. Django Unchained is the clearest statement of what Robert Carradine does — accessible, 165 minutes, and rated 8.4 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 Big Red One (1980)
Keeps the drama register of Django Unchained but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Long Riders (1980)
Keeps the drama register of The Big Red One but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Player (1992)
Keeps the crime register of The Long Riders but asks for a colder reading of it.
Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws (2019)
Keeps the comedy register of The Player but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Carpenter
Director
2 films together
Notably Escape from L.A.
Mark Rydell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cowboys
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably Mean Streets
Michael Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Orca
Hal Ashby
Director
1 film together
Notably Coming Home
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably The Long Riders
Samuel Fuller
Director
1 film together
Notably The Big Red One
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Player
Tobe Hooper
Director
1 film together
Notably Body Bags
Steve Boyum
Director
1 film together
Notably Supercross
Quentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together
Notably Django Unchained
Bob Cook
Director
1 film together
Notably Nearly Departed
Elizabeth Guest
Director
1 film together
Notably A Very Merry Breakup
Christopher Ray
Director
1 film together
Notably Night of the Living Dead
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
John Carpenter
Director
2 films together · 5.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Escape from L.A.Quentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Django UnchainedRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PlayerMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mean StreetsMark Rydell
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CowboysHal Ashby
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Coming HomeSamuel Fuller
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Big Red OneWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Long RidersSteve Boyum
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SupercrossMichael Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
OrcaTobe Hooper
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Body BagsChristopher Ray
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night of the Living DeadBob Cook
Director
1 film together · 1.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nearly DepartedElizabeth Guest
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Very Merry BreakupSix 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
Django Unchained
as Tracker
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Supercross
as Clay Sparks
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Django Unchained
as Tracker
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Player
as Robert Carradine
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Django Unchained
as Tracker
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 Carradine 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
54 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
9 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
Django Unchained
as Tracker
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Player
as Robert Carradine
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Supercross
as Clay Sparks
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Player
as Robert Carradine
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Django Unchained
as Tracker
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Night They Came Home
as Bart
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bill Tilghman and the Outlaws
as Frank James
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Night of the Living Dead
as Bill
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — Quentin Tarantino
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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