Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7727
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ben Cross represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 45 years in, and Ben is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ben Cross appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ben. Star Trek 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 horror, thriller, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Stamm, Augustine Frizzell, Don Michael Paul and others, Ben Cross 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.
Star Trek (2009) as Sarek · Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006) as Steven Parker · The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021) as Older Anthony O'Hare
Career snapshot
Ranked #7727 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1977–2022
Career length
45 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Star Trek
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Star Trek
Most frequent director
Daniel Stamm
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Stamm
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 51m
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
6.8
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
7.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Prey for the Devil, The Last Letter from Your Lover — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. A Bridge Too Far.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 1970s | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.01 film | 6.71 film | 7.41 film | — | 7.31 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.44 films | 5.71 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.52 films | 5.71 film | 6.91 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 5.32 films | — | — |
| Crime | — | — | 7.41 film | 5.71 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | — | — | 7.31 film |
| Horror | — | — | 5.81 film | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1977A Bridge Too Far
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Trooper Binns.
Career peak
2006Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2009Star Trek
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Cardinal Matthews.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Steven Parker
Directed by Isaac Florentine
as Sarek
Directed by J.J. Abrams
as Harold Abrahams
Directed by Hugh Hudson
as Older Anthony O'Hare
Directed by Augustine Frizzell
as Cardinal Matthews
Directed by Daniel Stamm
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
Steven Parker
Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Steven Parker gives Ben Cross a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Sarek
Star Trek (2009)
Performance score7.4
Star Trek asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sarek is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Harold Abrahams
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Performance score7.4
Chariots of Fire asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Harold Abrahams is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Older Anthony O'Hare
The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021)
Performance score7.2
The Last Letter from Your Lover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Older Anthony O'Hare 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 Steven Parker
Start here. Undisputed II: Last Man Standing is the clearest statement of what Ben Cross does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ben 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.
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Keeps the drama register of Undisputed II: Last Man Standing but asks for a colder reading of it.
Star Trek (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Chariots of Fire — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Last Letter from Your Lover (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Star Trek — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Prey for the Devil (2022)
A deliberate change of key after The Last Letter from Your Lover — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Richard Attenborough
Director
1 film together
Notably A Bridge Too Far
Hugh Hudson
Director
1 film together
Notably Chariots of Fire
Sheldon Lettich
Director
1 film together
Notably The Order
Isaac Florentine
Director
1 film together
Notably Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek
Rob Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hurricane Heist
Don Michael Paul
Director
1 film together
Notably Jarhead: Law of Return
Augustine Frizzell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Letter from Your Lover
Daniel Stamm
Director
1 film together
Notably Prey for the Devil
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star TrekIsaac Florentine
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Undisputed II: Last Man StandingAugustine Frizzell
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last Letter from Your LoverRichard Attenborough
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Bridge Too FarDaniel Stamm
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Prey for the DevilHugh Hudson
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chariots of FireDon Michael Paul
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jarhead: Law of ReturnRob Cohen
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hurricane HeistSheldon Lettich
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The OrderSix 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
Star Trek
as Sarek
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Last Letter from Your Lover
as Older Anthony O'Hare
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Star Trek
as Sarek
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
A Bridge Too Far
as Trooper Binns
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
as Steven Parker
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. Ben Cross 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
45 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in action, 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
Star Trek
as Sarek
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
as Steven Parker
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Last Letter from Your Lover
as Older Anthony O'Hare
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Undisputed II: Last Man Standing
as Steven Parker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Trek
as Sarek
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Hurricane Heist
as Dixon
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Last Letter from Your Lover
as Older Anthony O'Hare
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Trek
as Sarek
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
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Ben Cross 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
