Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3852
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Brent Spiner represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 44 years in, and Brent is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Brent Spiner appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Brent. I Am Sam is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Mark A. Altman, Roland Emmerich, Craig Mazin and others, Brent Spiner 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.
I Am Sam (2001) as Shoe Saleman · The Aviator (2004) as Robert Gross · Star Trek: First Contact (1996) as Lieutenant Commander Data
Career snapshot
Ranked #3852 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1980–2024
Career length
44 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
I Am Sam
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
I Am Sam
Most frequent director
Roland Emmerich
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Roland Emmerich
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.9
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
7.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Independence Day, Star Trek: First Contact — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.1
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
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. Stardust Memories.
Most productive era
1990s
4 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 | 6.71 film | 6.61 film | 7.42 films | — | — |
| Action | — | 7.22 films | 6.12 films | 5.61 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.31 film | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 7.21 film | 5.71 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.61 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Fan in Lobby.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2001I Am Sam
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024Best Christmas Movies Ever!
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Lieutenant Commander Data
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
as Shoe Saleman
Directed by Jessie Nelson
as Robert Gross
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Conan O'Brien (voice)
Directed by Trey Parker
as Dr. Brackish Okun
Directed by Roland Emmerich
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
Lieutenant Commander Data
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lieutenant Commander Data gives Brent Spiner a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Shoe Saleman
I Am Sam (2001)
Performance score7.3
I Am Sam asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Shoe Saleman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Robert Gross
The Aviator (2004)
Performance score7.2
The Aviator asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Robert Gross is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Conan O'Brien (voice)
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
Performance score7.1
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Conan O'Brien (voice) 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 Lieutenant Commander Data
Start here. Star Trek: First Contact is the clearest statement of what Brent Spiner does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Brent 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.
Independence Day (1996)
Keeps the action register of Star Trek: First Contact but asks for a colder reading of it.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
A deliberate change of key after Independence Day — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
I Am Sam (2001)
A deliberate change of key after South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Aviator (2004)
Keeps the drama register of I Am Sam but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Roland Emmerich
Director
2 films together
Notably Independence Day
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Stardust Memories
Jon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together
Notably Phenomenon
Jonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: First Contact
Trey Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
Jessie Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably I Am Sam
Stuart Baird
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: Nemesis
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Aviator
Craig Mazin
Director
1 film together
Notably Superhero Movie
Mark A. Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably Best Christmas Movies Ever!
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Roland Emmerich
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
Independence DayJessie Nelson
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Am SamMartin Scorsese
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 AviatorJonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: First ContactTrey Parker
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
South Park: Bigger, Longer & UncutWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Stardust MemoriesJon Turteltaub
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PhenomenonStuart Baird
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: NemesisMark A. Altman
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Best Christmas Movies Ever!Craig Mazin
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superhero MovieSix 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
I Am Sam
as Shoe Saleman
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Phenomenon
as Dr. Bob
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
I Am Sam
as Shoe Saleman
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Stardust Memories
as Fan in Lobby
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Star Trek: First Contact
as Lieutenant Commander Data
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. Brent Spiner 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.
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
I Am Sam
as Shoe Saleman
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Star Trek: First Contact
as Lieutenant Commander Data
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Phenomenon
as Dr. Bob
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Star Trek: First Contact
as Lieutenant Commander Data
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Trek: First Contact
as Lieutenant Commander Data
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Trek: First Contact
as Lieutenant Commander Data
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Stardust Memories
as Fan in Lobby
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Superhero Movie
as Dr. Strom
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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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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