Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#41210
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Samuel Davis 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.
Samuel Davis appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Samuel. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood 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, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, mystery, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Richard Linklater, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez and others, Samuel Davis 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.
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022) as Pinball Buyer · Last Flag Flying (2017) as Larry Jr. (voice) · Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) as Frat Boy #3
Career snapshot
Ranked #41210 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2013–2024
Career length
11 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
Average Nutevio score
5.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
Most frequent director
Richard Linklater
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Richard Linklater
Most common genre
Comedy
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 27m
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
6.1
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
6.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Last Flag Flying, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Machete Kills — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.2
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Last Flag Flying, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Machete Kills.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.52 films | 7.01 film |
| Action | 6.02 films | — |
| Thriller | 6.02 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 3.52 films |
| Crime | 6.02 films | — |
| Horror | — | 5.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2013Machete Kills
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Clebourne.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
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
2024Party People
The current state of the argument, as Stoker.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Pinball Buyer
Directed by Richard Linklater
as Larry Jr. (voice)
Directed by Richard Linklater
as Kevin
Directed by Unknown
as Frat Boy #3
Directed by Frank Miller
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
Pinball Buyer
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pinball Buyer gives Samuel Davis a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Larry Jr. (voice)
Last Flag Flying (2017)
Performance score6.6
Last Flag Flying asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Larry Jr. (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Stoker
Party People (2024)
Performance score6.5
Party People asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stoker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kevin
The Free Fall (2022)
Performance score6.5
The Free Fall asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kevin 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 Pinball Buyer
Start here. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood is the clearest statement of what Samuel Davis does — accessible, 99 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Samuel 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.
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)
A deliberate change of key after Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Last Flag Flying (2017)
A deliberate change of key after Sin City: A Dame to Kill For — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Free Fall (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Last Flag Flying — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Party People (2024)
Same director as The Free Fall, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Richard Linklater
Director
2 films together
Notably Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
Peter Landesman
Director
1 film together
Notably Parkland
Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together
Notably Machete Kills
Frank Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Richard Linklater
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
Apollo 10½: A Space Age ChildhoodFrank Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sin City: A Dame to Kill ForPeter Landesman
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ParklandRobert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Machete KillsSix 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
Last Flag Flying
as Larry Jr. (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
Parkland
as Trauma Resident
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
as Pinball Buyer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Parkland
as Trauma Resident
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
as Pinball Buyer
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. Samuel Davis 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
as Pinball Buyer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
as Frat Boy #3
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Parkland
as Trauma Resident
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Free Fall
as Kevin
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
as Frat Boy #3
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
as Frat Boy #3
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Parkland
as Trauma Resident
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Free Fall
as Kevin
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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