Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1556
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ted Danson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 44 years in, and Ted is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ted Danson appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ted. Henry David Thoreau is the clearest case: a film rated 9.3 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 documentary, music, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Russell Norman, Oz Rodríguez, Ken Kwapis and others, Ted Danson 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.
Henry David Thoreau (2026) as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice) · Saving Private Ryan (1998) as Captain Hamill · Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic (2023) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #1556 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1982–2026
Career length
44 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.3
Henry David Thoreau
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.3
Henry David Thoreau
Most frequent director
Russell Norman
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Russell Norman
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
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
7.2
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
7.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Henry David Thoreau, Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic, 30 Rock: A One-Time Special — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.5
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.5
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. She's Having a Baby, Creepshow.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.91 film | 8.51 film | — | 6.71 film | — |
| Action | — | — | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.42 films | 5.61 film | 6.51 film | 6.51 film | 6.31 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Romance | 5.91 film | — | — | 6.71 film | — |
| Horror | 6.91 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1982Creepshow
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Harry Wentworth (segment "Something To Tide You Over").
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.3 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. The current state of the argument, as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice).
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.
10 of 10 films
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Captain Hamill
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Self
Directed by Russell Norman
as J. W. McGraw
Directed by Ken Kwapis
as Harry Wentworth (segment "Something To Tide You Over")
Directed by George A. Romero
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
Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
Henry David Thoreau (2026)
Performance score9.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice) gives Ted Danson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Captain Hamill
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Performance score8.2
Saving Private Ryan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Hamill is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic (2023)
Performance score6.9
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
J. W. McGraw
Big Miracle (2012)
Performance score6.9
Big Miracle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. J. W. McGraw 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 Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
Start here. Henry David Thoreau is the clearest statement of what Ted Danson does — accessible, 173 minutes, and rated 9.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ted 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.
Creepshow (1982)
A deliberate change of key after Henry David Thoreau — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
A deliberate change of key after Creepshow — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Big Miracle (2012)
Keeps the drama register of Saving Private Ryan but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Big Miracle — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
George A. Romero
Director
1 film together
Notably Creepshow
John Hughes
Director
1 film together
Notably She's Having a Baby
Richard Benjamin
Director
1 film together
Notably Made in America
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Saving Private Ryan
Callie Khouri
Director
1 film together
Notably Mad Money
Seth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together
Notably Ted
Ken Kwapis
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Miracle
Oz Rodríguez
Director
1 film together
Notably 30 Rock: A One-Time Special
Russell Norman
Director
1 film together
Notably Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Saving Private RyanRussell Norman
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of MagicGeorge A. Romero
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CreepshowKen Kwapis
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big MiracleSeth MacFarlane
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TedCallie Khouri
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mad MoneyOz Rodríguez
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
30 Rock: A One-Time SpecialJohn Hughes
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
She's Having a BabyRichard Benjamin
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Made in AmericaSix 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
Henry David Thoreau
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (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
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic
as Self
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Henry David Thoreau
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ted
as Ted Danson (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Henry David Thoreau
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (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. Ted Danson 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
44 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 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
Henry David Thoreau
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Henry David Thoreau
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Dick Van Dyke: 98 Years of Magic
as Self
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ted
as Ted Danson (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Henry David Thoreau
as Ralph Waldo Emerson (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mad Money
as Don Cardigan
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
She's Having a Baby
as Ted Danson (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Saving Private Ryan
as Captain Hamill
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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