Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#57357
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Buck Holland represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Buck is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Buck Holland appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Buck. The Wild Bunch is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for horror, drama, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tim Burton, Rand Ravich, Terry Gilliam and others, Buck Holland 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.
The Wild Bunch (1969) as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited) · Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) as Barber Customer · Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) as Shopper
Career snapshot
Ranked #57357 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1969–2007
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
The Wild Bunch
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
The Wild Bunch
Most frequent director
Tim Burton
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tim Burton
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 1m
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
1960s
7.4 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. The Wild Bunch — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Wild Bunch.
Most productive era
1990s
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 | 1960s | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.91 film | 6.33 films | 7.21 film |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.61 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.91 film | 7.21 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 7.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1969The Wild Bunch
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited). 7.4 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.
Most recent film
2007Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
The current state of the argument, as Barber Customer.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
Directed by Sam Peckinpah
as Shopper
Directed by Terry Gilliam
as Helicopter Pilot (uncredited)
Directed by Robert Altman
as Mission Control (uncredited)
Directed by Rand Ravich
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
Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
The Wild Bunch (1969)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited) gives Buck Holland a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Barber Customer
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Performance score7.1
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Barber Customer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Shopper
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Performance score7.1
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Shopper is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Helicopter Pilot (uncredited)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Performance score6.8
M*A*S*H asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Helicopter Pilot (uncredited) 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 Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
Start here. The Wild Bunch is the clearest statement of what Buck Holland does — accessible, 145 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Buck 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.
M*A*S*H (1970)
A deliberate change of key after The Wild Bunch — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Keeps the comedy register of M*A*S*H but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Astronaut's Wife (1999)
Keeps the drama register of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Keeps the drama register of The Astronaut's Wife but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sam Peckinpah
Director
1 film together
Notably The Wild Bunch
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably M*A*S*H
Johnny Depp
Director
1 film together
Notably The Brave
Terry Gilliam
Director
1 film together
Notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Rand Ravich
Director
1 film together
Notably The Astronaut's Wife
Tim Burton
Director
1 film together
Notably Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Sam Peckinpah
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Wild BunchTim Burton
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet StreetTerry Gilliam
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fear and Loathing in Las VegasRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
M*A*S*HJohnny Depp
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BraveRand Ravich
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Astronaut's WifeSix 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
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
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 Brave
as Scout Master
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
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. Buck Holland 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
38 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 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
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
as Barber Customer
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Brave
as Scout Master
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Astronaut's Wife
as Mission Control (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Wild Bunch
as Thornton Posse Rider (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
M*A*S*H
as Helicopter Pilot (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
as Barber Customer
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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