Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#999
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tate Donovan represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and Tate is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tate Donovan appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tate. The Holdovers is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 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, thriller, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Bart Layton, Dexter Fletcher, Alexander Payne and others, Tate Donovan 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.
The Holdovers (2023) as Stanley Clotfelter · Love You to Death (2019) as Travis Stoller · Manchester by the Sea (2016) as Hockey Coach
Career snapshot
Ranked #999 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1986–2026
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
The Holdovers
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
The Holdovers
Most frequent director
Dexter Fletcher
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Dexter Fletcher
Most common genre
Drama
12 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
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
7.0 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Crime 101, Ghosted, The Holdovers — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.0
Across 6 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
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. SpaceCamp.
Most productive era
2010s
7 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.61 film | 7.12 films | 7.16 films | 7.03 films |
| Action | — | 6.61 film | 6.62 films | — | 6.91 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 7.11 film | 7.31 film | 7.01 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.92 films | 6.12 films | 5.82 films | 7.32 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.11 film | — | 7.01 film |
| Romance | — | 6.92 films | — | — | 6.91 film |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1986SpaceCamp
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kevin.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1997Hercules
7.6 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
2026Crime 101
The current state of the argument, as Monroe.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Hercules (voice)
Directed by John Musker
as Travis Stoller
Directed by Alex Kalymnios
as Stanley Clotfelter
Directed by Alexander Payne
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Hercules (voice)
Hercules (1997)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hercules (voice) gives Tate Donovan a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Travis Stoller
Love You to Death (2019)
Performance score7.9
Love You to Death asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Travis Stoller is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Stanley Clotfelter
The Holdovers (2023)
Performance score7.4
The Holdovers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Stanley Clotfelter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Narrator
Expedition Everest (2020)
Performance score7.4
Expedition Everest asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Narrator 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 Hercules (voice)
Start here. Hercules is the clearest statement of what Tate Donovan does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tate 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.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Hercules — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Love You to Death (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Manchester by the Sea but asks for a colder reading of it.
Expedition Everest (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Love You to Death — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Holdovers (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Expedition Everest — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Dexter Fletcher
Director
2 films together
Notably Rocketman
Harry Winer
Director
1 film together
Notably SpaceCamp
Michael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Memphis Belle
John Musker
Director
1 film together
Notably Hercules
Adam Shankman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Pacifier
George Clooney
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Night, and Good Luck.
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably Shooter
Andrew Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Nancy Drew
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Argo
Gaby Dellal
Director
1 film together
Notably 3 Generations
Kenneth Lonergan
Director
1 film together
Notably Manchester by the Sea
Marc Webb
Director
1 film together
Notably The Only Living Boy in New York
Alex Kalymnios
Director
1 film together
Notably Love You to Death
Liesl Tommy
Director
1 film together
Notably Respect
Alexander Payne
Director
1 film together
Notably The Holdovers
Bart Layton
Director
1 film together
Notably Crime 101
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Dexter Fletcher
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
RocketmanAlexander Payne
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HoldoversAlex Kalymnios
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love You to DeathKenneth Lonergan
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Manchester by the SeaJohn Musker
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HerculesBen Affleck
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ArgoAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShooterGeorge Clooney
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good Night, and Good Luck.Bart Layton
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crime 101Liesl Tommy
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RespectMichael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Memphis BelleGaby Dellal
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
3 GenerationsMarc Webb
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Only Living Boy in New YorkAndrew Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nancy DrewAdam Shankman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The PacifierHarry Winer
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpaceCampSix 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
The Holdovers
as Stanley Clotfelter
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Hercules
as Hercules (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
Hercules
as Hercules (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Manchester by the Sea
as Hockey Coach
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hercules
as Hercules (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. Tate Donovan 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
40 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
12 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
Hercules
as Hercules (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Crime 101
as Monroe
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Respect
as John Hammond
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Nancy Drew
as Carson Drew
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Shooter
as Russ Turner
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Shooter
as Russ Turner
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Hercules
as Hercules (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Hercules
as Hercules (voice)
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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