Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2260
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sam Witwer works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sam Witwer appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sam. Justice League: Throne of Atlantis is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, screen presence. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for science fiction, comedy, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ken Cunningham, Ron Howard, Ethan Spaulding and others, Sam Witwer 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.
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015) as Orm (voice) · LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales (2021) as Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice) · Crank (2006) as Shootout Henchman #1
Career snapshot
Ranked #2260 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2006–2024
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Most frequent director
Brian Taylor
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Brian Taylor
Most common genre
Science Fiction
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 15m
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
6.4
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
2010s
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Solo: A Star Wars Story, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Gamer, Crank.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Action | 6.22 films | 6.82 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.22 films | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Crime | 6.71 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2006Crank
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Shootout Henchman #1.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2015Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
7.0 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 Kirk.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Orm (voice)
Directed by Ethan Spaulding
as Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice)
Directed by Ken Cunningham
as Maul (voice)
Directed by Ron Howard
as Shootout Henchman #1
Directed by Brian Taylor
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
Orm (voice)
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis (2015)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Orm (voice) gives Sam Witwer a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Kirk
765874: Unification (2024)
Performance score6.8
765874: Unification asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kirk is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice)
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales (2021)
Performance score6.7
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Maul (voice)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Performance score6.6
Solo: A Star Wars Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Maul (voice) 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 Orm (voice)
Start here. Justice League: Throne of Atlantis is the clearest statement of what Sam Witwer does — accessible, 72 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sam 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.
Crank (2006)
Keeps the action register of Justice League: Throne of Atlantis but asks for a colder reading of it.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
Keeps the action register of Crank but asks for a colder reading of it.
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales (2021)
Keeps the science fiction register of Solo: A Star Wars Story but asks for a colder reading of it.
765874: Unification (2024)
Keeps the science fiction register of LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brian Taylor
Director
2 films together
Notably Crank
Ethan Spaulding
Director
1 film together
Notably Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Solo: A Star Wars Story
Ken Cunningham
Director
1 film together
Notably LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brian Taylor
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
CrankEthan Spaulding
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Justice League: Throne of AtlantisKen Cunningham
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying TalesRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Solo: A Star Wars StorySix 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
Solo: A Star Wars Story
as Maul (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales
as Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
as Orm (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Solo: A Star Wars Story
as Maul (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
as Orm (voice)
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. Sam Witwer 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Science Fiction Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in science fiction, 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
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
as Orm (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Crank
as Shootout Henchman #1
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales
as Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Crank
as Shootout Henchman #1
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Justice League: Throne of Atlantis
as Orm (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Solo: A Star Wars Story
as Maul (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales
as Darth Maul / Trudgen (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Solo: A Star Wars Story
as Maul (voice)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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David Krumholtz
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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