Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#821
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Casey Affleck represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Casey is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Casey Affleck appears in 29 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Casey. Interior grief played almost entirely below the line of dialogue. Interstellar is the clearest case: a film rated 9.4 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 comedy, crime, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Doug Liman, Mikael Håfström, Christopher Nolan and others, Casey Affleck helped set a standard other performers now audition against. 1 Academy Award confirm what the films already argue.
Interstellar (2014) as Tom · Oppenheimer (2023) as Boris Pash · Interstellar (2014) as Tom
Career snapshot
Ranked #821 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
29
1995–2024
Career length
38 yrs
Active since 1988
Academy Awards
1
Competitive wins
Oscar nominations
2
Career total
Highest Nutevio score
9.4
Interstellar
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
Interstellar
Most frequent director
Christopher Nolan
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Christopher Nolan
Most common genre
Drama
19 titles
Average runtime
2h 2m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.3
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
7.7
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
1990s
7.3 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy, To Die For — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.3
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2020s
7 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Instigators, Slingshot, Oppenheimer.
Most productive era
2010s
12 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 | 7.33 films | 7.22 films | 7.010 films | 7.64 films |
| Action | — | — | 6.02 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.03 films | 6.13 films | 7.03 films |
| Comedy | 6.72 films | 5.92 films | 6.23 films | 6.11 film |
| Sci-Fi | — | — | 9.41 film | — |
| Crime | 6.61 film | 6.85 films | 6.25 films | 6.11 film |
| Romance | 6.81 film | 6.31 film | 6.72 films | 7.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
Career begins
1988Working from 1988
The start of the professional record — years before the catalogue picks the story up.
First film in Nutevio
1995To Die For
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Russel Hines.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2014Interstellar
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.4 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.
First Academy Award nomination
2017Manchester by the Sea
Best Actor — the moment the industry started writing the same sentences our editors had been writing.
First Academy Award
2017Manchester by the Sea
Best Actor. Confirmation rather than revelation, which is how the best of these usually arrive.
Most recent film
2024Slingshot
The current state of the argument, as John.
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.
29 of 29 films
as Tom
Directed by Christopher Nolan
as Boris Pash
Directed by Christopher Nolan
as Tom
Directed by Christopher Nolan
as Morgan O'Mally
Directed by Gus Van Sant
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Showing 24 of 27 titles · 39 total credits · active 1995–2024
The Instigators
2024 · Cobby · Writer
Slingshot
2024 · John
Oppenheimer
2023 · Boris Pash
Dreamin' Wild
2023 · Donnie Emerson · Executive Producer
The World to Come
2021 · Dyer · Producer
Every Breath You Take
2021 · Phillip · Executive Producer
Our Friend
2019 · Matthew Teague
Light of My Life
2019 · Dad · Director · Writer · Producer
The Old Man & the Gun
2018 · John Hunt
Manchester by the Sea
2016 · Lee Chandler
Triple 9
2016 · Chris Allen
Interstellar
2014 · Tom
Ain't Them Bodies Saints
2013 · Bob Muldoon
Out of the Furnace
2013 · Rodney Baze Jr.
Tower Heist
2011 · Charlie Gibbs
The Killer Inside Me
2010 · Lou Ford
I'm Still Here
2010 · Casey Affleck · Director · Writer · Producer · Editor · Director of Photography
Ocean's Thirteen
2007 · Virgil Malloy
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2007 · Robert Ford
Gone Baby Gone
2007 · Patrick Kenzie
Ocean's Twelve
2004 · Virgil Malloy
Ocean's Eleven
2001 · Virgil Malloy
American Pie 2
2001 · Tom Myers
Drowning Mona
2000 · Bobby Calzone
The defining work
#1
Tom
Interstellar (2014)
Performance score9.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tom gives Casey Affleck a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Boris Pash
Oppenheimer (2023)
Performance score8.7
Oppenheimer asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Boris Pash is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tom
Interstellar (2014)
Performance score8.7
Interstellar asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tom is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Morgan O'Mally
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Performance score8.3
Good Will Hunting asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Morgan O'Mally 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 Tom
Start here. Interstellar is the clearest statement of what Casey Affleck does — accessible, 169 minutes, and rated 9.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Casey 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.
Good Will Hunting (1997)
Keeps the drama register of Interstellar but asks for a colder reading of it.
Interstellar (2014)
Keeps the drama register of Good Will Hunting but asks for a colder reading of it.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Interstellar but asks for a colder reading of it.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Manchester by the Sea but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Christopher Nolan
Director
4 films together
Notably Interstellar
Gus Van Sant
Director
2 films together
Notably Good Will Hunting
David Lowery
Director
2 films together
Notably The Old Man & the Gun
Casey Affleck
Director
2 films together
Notably Light of My Life
Matt Damon
Actor
2 films together
Notably Interstellar
Kevin Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Chasing Amy
Nick Gomez
Director
1 film together
Notably Drowning Mona
Ben Affleck
Director
1 film together
Notably Gone Baby Gone
Andrew Dominik
Director
1 film together
Notably The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Brett Ratner
Director
1 film together
Notably Tower Heist
Scott Cooper
Director
1 film together
Notably Out of the Furnace
John Hillcoat
Director
1 film together
Notably Triple 9
Kenneth Lonergan
Director
1 film together
Notably Manchester by the Sea
Mona Fastvold
Director
1 film together
Notably The World to Come
Bill Pohlad
Director
1 film together
Notably Dreamin' Wild
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together
Notably Slingshot
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Instigators
Matthew McConaughey
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Anne Hathaway
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Michael Caine
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Jessica Chastain
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Wes Bentley
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Topher Grace
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Mackenzie Foy
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Ellen Burstyn
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
John Lithgow
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Bill Irwin
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
David Gyasi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Interstellar
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Christopher Nolan
Director
4 films together · 8.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
InterstellarGus Van Sant
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
Good Will HuntingCasey Affleck
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Light of My LifeDavid Lowery
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Old Man & the GunKenneth 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 SeaBen 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
Gone Baby GoneAndrew Dominik
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert FordMona Fastvold
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 World to ComeKevin Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chasing AmyScott Cooper
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Out of the FurnaceDoug Liman
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 InstigatorsMikael Håfström
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SlingshotBill Pohlad
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dreamin' WildBrett Ratner
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tower HeistJohn Hillcoat
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Triple 9Nick Gomez
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Drowning MonaSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Recognition
3 wins
3 wins · latest 2024
Oppenheimer
Manchester by the Sea · as Actor
Interstellar
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
Interstellar
as Tom
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Oppenheimer
as Boris Pash
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Oppenheimer
as Boris Pash
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
American Pie 2
as Tom Myers
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Oppenheimer
as Boris Pash
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. Casey Affleck has known it for a long time.”
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
“They won't fear it until they understand it. And they won't understand it until they've used it.”
“Do not go gentle into that good night.”
“Murph, I'm coming back.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
| Nutevio Performer Score | 8.5 | 8.9 |
|---|---|---|
| Career ranking | #18 of 681 | #2 of 681 |
| Awards on file | 1 recorded | 4 recorded |
| Oscar wins | 1 | 2 |
| Oscar nominations | 2 | 6 |
| Average Nutevio score | 9.3 | 9.3 |
| Genres | Drama, History, Thriller, Sci-Fi | Sci-Fi, Adventure, Drama, Thriller |
| Directors | Christopher Nolan | Christopher Nolan |
| Performance DNA | Drama, Screen presence, Emotional range | Transformation, Screen presence, Rewatchability |
| Career timeline | 2014–2023 | 2006–2014 |
| Most iconic role | Tom — Interstellar | Professor Brand — Interstellar |
| Most rewatchable film | Interstellar | The Dark Knight |
| Filmography | 2 catalogue films | 4 catalogue films |
Films together
Interstellar
Shared directors
Christopher Nolan
Shared collections
Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked, Thriller Movies, Drama Movies, Top 100 Mind-Bending Movies, Best Time Travel Movies, Adventure Movies
Collaborators in common
Christopher Nolan · Matt Damon · Matthew McConaughey · Anne Hathaway · Jessica Chastain · Wes Bentley · Topher Grace · Mackenzie Foy
Michael Caine edges ahead here — a higher floor across a comparable body of work.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
29 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Editor's Icon
Awarded
Named by our desk for a body of work we return to when we need to explain what screen acting is for.
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
19 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
Interstellar
as Tom
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Interstellar
as Tom
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Oppenheimer
as Boris Pash
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Gone Baby Gone
as Patrick Kenzie
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Interstellar
as Tom
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Triple 9
as Chris Allen
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Chasing Amy
as Little Kid
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Oppenheimer
as Boris Pash
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
Across the library
Every Nutevio collection this name turns up in, and how high they rank there.
Collection footprint
Appears in 10 Nutevio collections
Keep reading
director
Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked
Includes Oppenheimer, Interstellar
Read the collectiongenre
Drama Movies
Includes Oppenheimer, Interstellar
Read the collectiontheme
Top 100 Mind-Bending Movies
Features Interstellar at #1
Read the collectiontheme
Best Time Travel Movies
Features Interstellar at #1
Read the collectiongenre
Adventure Movies
Features Interstellar at #1
Read the collectiongenre
Sci-Fi Movies
Features Interstellar at #1
Read the collectionFrom the magazine
If you like this performer
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Works with the same directors — Christopher Nolan
Matt Damon
Works with the same directors — Christopher Nolan
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Works with the same directors — Christopher Nolan
Elliot Page
Works with the same directors — Christopher Nolan
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Community
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