Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1555
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tim Guinee represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 31 years in, and Tim is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tim Guinee appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tim. Iron Man is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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, drama, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Kevin Costner, Kasi Lemmons, Peter Hedges and others, Tim Guinee 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.
Iron Man (2008) as Major Allen · Synecdoche, New York (2008) as Needleman Actor · Harriet (2019) as Thomas Garrett
Career snapshot
Ranked #1555 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1993–2024
Career length
31 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Iron Man
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Iron Man
Most frequent director
Kevin Costner
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Kevin Costner
Most common genre
Drama
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
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
6.7
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
6.9 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1, Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.9
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Blade, Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, Courage Under Fire.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.54 films | 6.66 films | 6.92 films |
| Action | 7.01 film | 6.94 films | 7.11 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.61 film | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 5.91 film | 5.91 film | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | 5.91 film | 6.81 film | — |
| Romance | 6.41 film | 5.91 film | 6.42 films | — |
| Horror | 7.01 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1993Heaven & Earth
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Young Sergeant.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2008Iron Man
7.9 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
2024Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
The current state of the argument.
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 Major Allen
Directed by Jon Favreau
as Thomas Garrett
Directed by Kasi Lemmons
as Frank Green
Directed by Ramin Bahrani
as Major Allen
Directed by Jon Favreau
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
Major Allen
Iron Man (2008)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Major Allen gives Tim Guinee a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Needleman Actor
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
Performance score7.3
Synecdoche, New York asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Needleman Actor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Thomas Garrett
Harriet (2019)
Performance score7.2
Harriet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Thomas Garrett is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Frank Green
99 Homes (2015)
Performance score7.0
99 Homes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frank Green 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 Major Allen
Start here. Iron Man is the clearest statement of what Tim Guinee does — accessible, 126 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tim 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.
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Iron Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Iron Man 2 (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Synecdoche, New York — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
99 Homes (2015)
A deliberate change of key after Iron Man 2 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Harriet (2019)
Keeps the drama register of 99 Homes but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jon Favreau
Director
2 films together
Notably Iron Man
Kevin Costner
Director
2 films together
Notably Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2
Oliver Stone
Director
1 film together
Notably Heaven & Earth
Jocelyn Moorhouse
Director
1 film together
Notably How to Make an American Quilt
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Courage Under Fire
Mike Judge
Director
1 film together
Notably Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
Stephen Norrington
Director
1 film together
Notably Blade
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Impostor
Robert C. Cooper
Director
1 film together
Notably Stargate: The Ark of Truth
Charlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Synecdoche, New York
Rowan Woods
Director
1 film together
Notably Winged Creatures
Rebecca Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Jay Duplass
Director
1 film together
Notably Cyrus
Francis Lawrence
Director
1 film together
Notably Water for Elephants
Gus Van Sant
Director
1 film together
Notably Promised Land
Ramin Bahrani
Director
1 film together
Notably 99 Homes
Peter Hedges
Director
1 film together
Notably Ben Is Back
Kasi Lemmons
Director
1 film together
Notably Harriet
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jon Favreau
Director
2 films together · 7.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Iron ManKevin Costner
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2Charlie Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Synecdoche, New YorkKasi Lemmons
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HarrietRobert C. Cooper
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Stargate: The Ark of TruthStephen Norrington
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BladeFrancis Lawrence
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Water for ElephantsRamin Bahrani
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
99 HomesPeter Hedges
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ben Is BackMike Judge
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beavis and Butt-Head Do AmericaEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Courage Under FireOliver Stone
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Heaven & EarthJocelyn Moorhouse
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
How to Make an American QuiltGus Van Sant
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Promised LandGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ImpostorJay Duplass
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CyrusRebecca Miller
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Private Lives of Pippa LeeRowan Woods
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Winged CreaturesSix 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
Iron Man
as Major Allen
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Harriet
as Thomas Garrett
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Iron Man
as Major Allen
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Synecdoche, New York
as Needleman Actor
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Iron Man
as Major Allen
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. Tim Guinee 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
31 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
15 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
Iron Man
as Major Allen
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Iron Man
as Major Allen
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Harriet
as Thomas Garrett
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Courage Under Fire
as Rady
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Iron Man
as Major Allen
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Iron Man 2
as Major Allen
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
as Hoover Guide / ATF Agent (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Iron Man
as Major Allen
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
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
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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