Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1706
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Robert Englund represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 50 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 Englund appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Robert. A Nightmare on Elm Street is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 mystery, horror, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rhys Frake-Waterfield, Michael Cusack, David A. Weiner and others, Robert Englund 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.
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as Fred Krueger · Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026) as Cricket (voice) · In Search of Darkness: Part II (2020) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #1706 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1976–2026
Career length
50 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Pinocchio: Unstrung
Most frequent director
David A. Weiner
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David A. Weiner
Most common genre
Horror
16 titles
Average runtime
1h 49m
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
6.8
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
2020s
6.4 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Pinocchio: Unstrung, Mad Props, Abruptio — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.4
Across 8 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.7
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. A Star Is Born.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.21 film | — | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.23 films | 5.71 film | — | 5.92 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.71 film | — | 6.41 film |
| Romance | 6.21 film | — | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.45 films | 6.13 films | 6.12 films | 6.56 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1976A Star Is Born
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Marty (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.5 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
The current state of the argument, as Cricket (voice).
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.
19 of 19 films
as Cricket (voice)
Directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield
as Robert Englund / Freddy Krueger
Directed by Wes Craven
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
Fred Krueger
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Fred Krueger gives Robert Englund a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cricket (voice)
Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026)
Performance score7.4
Pinocchio: Unstrung asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cricket (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Robert Englund / Freddy Krueger
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Performance score7.0
Wes Craven's New Nightmare asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robert Englund / Freddy Krueger is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
In Search of Darkness: Part III (2022)
Performance score6.9
In Search of Darkness: Part III asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self 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 Fred Krueger
Start here. A Nightmare on Elm Street is the clearest statement of what Robert Englund does — accessible, 91 minutes, and rated 7.5 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.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Same director as A Nightmare on Elm Street, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2019)
Keeps the horror register of Wes Craven's New Nightmare but asks for a colder reading of it.
In Search of Darkness: Part III (2022)
Keeps the horror register of Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pinocchio: Unstrung (2026)
Keeps the horror register of In Search of Darkness: Part III but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Wes Craven
Director
2 films together
Notably A Nightmare on Elm Street
David A. Weiner
Director
2 films together
Notably In Search of Darkness: Part II
Frank Pierson
Director
1 film together
Notably A Star Is Born
Jack Sholder
Director
1 film together
Notably A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge
Chuck Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Renny Harlin
Director
1 film together
Notably A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
Stephen Hopkins
Director
1 film together
Notably A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child
Rachel Talalay
Director
1 film together
Notably Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Don Michael Paul
Director
1 film together
Notably Lake Placid: The Final Chapter
Michael Cusack
Director
1 film together
Notably The Paloni Show! Halloween Special!
Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Director
1 film together
Notably Pinocchio: Unstrung
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Wes Craven
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
A Nightmare on Elm StreetDavid A. Weiner
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
In Search of Darkness: Part IIRhys Frake-Waterfield
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pinocchio: UnstrungChuck Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream WarriorsMichael Cusack
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 Paloni Show! Halloween Special!Frank Pierson
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Star Is BornRenny Harlin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream MasterJack Sholder
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's RevengeDon Michael Paul
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lake Placid: The Final ChapterRachel Talalay
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freddy's Dead: The Final NightmareStephen Hopkins
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream ChildSix 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
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Fred Krueger
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Star Is Born
as Marty (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Fred Krueger
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Star Is Born
as Marty (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Fred Krueger
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 Englund 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
50 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.
Horror Legend
Awarded
16 catalogue titles in horror, 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
Pinocchio: Unstrung
as Cricket (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Fred Krueger
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Star Is Born
as Marty (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Pinocchio: Unstrung
as Cricket (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
A Nightmare on Elm Street
as Fred Krueger
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
A Star Is Born
as Marty (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Star Is Born
as Marty (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Lake Placid: The Final Chapter
as Jim Bickerman
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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