Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15634
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Simon Oakland 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.
Simon Oakland appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Simon. Psycho is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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 western, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Winner, Peter Yates, Robert Wise and others, Simon Oakland 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.
Psycho (1960) as Fred Richman · West Side Story (1961) as Schrank · Bullitt (1968) as Captain Sam Bennett
Career snapshot
Ranked #15634 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1955–1972
Career length
17 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Psycho
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.4
Psycho
Most frequent director
Robert Wise
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Robert Wise
Most common genre
Crime
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 11m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
1960s
7.4 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. Bullitt, The Sand Pebbles, West Side Story — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.4
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Desperate Hours.
Most productive era
1960s
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 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.02 films | — |
| Action | — | 7.01 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 7.82 films | — |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 7.02 films | — |
| Romance | — | 7.11 film | — |
| Horror | — | 8.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as State Trooper (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1960Psycho
8.5 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
1972Chato's Land
The current state of the argument, as Jubal Hooker.
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 Fred Richman
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
as Schrank
Directed by Robert Wise
as Captain Sam Bennett
Directed by Peter Yates
as Stawski
Directed by Robert Wise
as Jubal Hooker
Directed by Michael Winner
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 Richman
Psycho (1960)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Fred Richman gives Simon Oakland a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Schrank
West Side Story (1961)
Performance score7.2
West Side Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Schrank is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Captain Sam Bennett
Bullitt (1968)
Performance score7.1
Bullitt asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Sam Bennett is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Stawski
The Sand Pebbles (1966)
Performance score6.8
The Sand Pebbles asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stawski 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 Richman
Start here. Psycho is the clearest statement of what Simon Oakland does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Simon 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.
West Side Story (1961)
A deliberate change of key after Psycho — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Sand Pebbles (1966)
Same director as West Side Story, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Bullitt (1968)
A deliberate change of key after The Sand Pebbles — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Chato's Land (1972)
A deliberate change of key after Bullitt — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Wise
Director
2 films together
Notably West Side Story
William Wyler
Director
1 film together
Notably The Desperate Hours
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
1 film together
Notably Psycho
Peter Yates
Director
1 film together
Notably Bullitt
Michael Winner
Director
1 film together
Notably Chato's Land
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Wise
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
West Side StoryAlfred Hitchcock
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PsychoPeter Yates
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BullittWilliam Wyler
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Desperate HoursMichael Winner
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chato's LandSix 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
Psycho
as Fred Richman
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
West Side Story
as Schrank
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Psycho
as Fred Richman
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Desperate Hours
as State Trooper (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Psycho
as Fred Richman
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. Simon Oakland 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.
Crime Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Psycho
as Fred Richman
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Psycho
as Fred Richman
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
West Side Story
as Schrank
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Psycho
as Fred Richman
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Psycho
as Fred Richman
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bullitt
as Captain Sam Bennett
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Sand Pebbles
as Stawski
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Psycho
as Fred Richman
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
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Richmond Arquette
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
Community
Which Simon Oakland performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
