Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#29518
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Sturgill Simpson 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.
Sturgill Simpson appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sturgill. Killers of the Flower Moon is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 crime, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Martin Scorsese, Gareth Edwards, Craig Zobel and others, Sturgill Simpson 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.
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) as Henry Grammer · Queen & Slim (2019) as Police Officer Reed · The Creator (2023) as Drew
Career snapshot
Ranked #29518 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
2019–2023
Career length
4 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Killers of the Flower Moon
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Killers of the Flower Moon
Most frequent director
Martin Scorsese
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Martin Scorsese
Most common genre
Drama
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 13m
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
6.3
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
7.0 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Killers of the Flower Moon, The Creator, The Hunt — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
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. The Dead Don't Die, Queen & Slim.
Most productive era
2020s
3 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 | 6.32 films | 7.41 film |
| Action | — | 6.82 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.71 film |
| Comedy | 5.41 film | — |
| Crime | 7.11 film | 7.41 film |
| Romance | 7.11 film | — |
| Horror | 5.41 film | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Guitar Zombie.
Career peak
2019Queen & Slim
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2023Killers of the Flower Moon
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2023The Creator
The current state of the argument, as Drew.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Henry Grammer
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Police Officer Reed
Directed by Melina Matsoukas
as Drew
Directed by Gareth Edwards
as Vanilla Nice
Directed by Craig Zobel
as Guitar Zombie
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
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
Henry Grammer
Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Henry Grammer gives Sturgill Simpson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Police Officer Reed
Queen & Slim (2019)
Performance score7.2
Queen & Slim asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Police Officer Reed is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Drew
The Creator (2023)
Performance score7.1
The Creator asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Drew is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Vanilla Nice
The Hunt (2020)
Performance score6.6
The Hunt asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Vanilla Nice 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 Henry Grammer
Start here. Killers of the Flower Moon is the clearest statement of what Sturgill Simpson does — accessible, 206 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sturgill 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.
Queen & Slim (2019)
Keeps the crime register of Killers of the Flower Moon but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Dead Don't Die (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Queen & Slim but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Hunt (2020)
Keeps the horror register of The Dead Don't Die but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Creator (2023)
Keeps the action register of The Hunt but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Melina Matsoukas
Director
1 film together
Notably Queen & Slim
Jim Jarmusch
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dead Don't Die
Craig Zobel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hunt
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably The Creator
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably Killers of the Flower Moon
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Killers of the Flower MoonMelina Matsoukas
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Queen & SlimGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The CreatorCraig Zobel
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 HuntJim Jarmusch
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Dead Don't DieSix 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
Queen & Slim
as Police Officer Reed
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Queen & Slim
as Police Officer Reed
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Killers of the Flower Moon
as Henry Grammer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Killers of the Flower Moon
as Henry Grammer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Killers of the Flower Moon
as Henry Grammer
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. Sturgill Simpson 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
3 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
Killers of the Flower Moon
as Henry Grammer
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Hunt
as Vanilla Nice
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Queen & Slim
as Police Officer Reed
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Killers of the Flower Moon
as Henry Grammer
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Creator
as Drew
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Creator
as Drew
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Queen & Slim
as Police Officer Reed
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Hunt
as Vanilla Nice
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
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Sturgill Simpson 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
