Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3949
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Cliff Robertson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 51 years in, and Cliff is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Cliff Robertson appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cliff. Spider-Man is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 action, science fiction, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Sam Raimi, John Carpenter, Penny Marshall and others, Cliff Robertson 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.
Spider-Man (2002) as Ben Parker · Spider-Man 2 (2004) as Ben Parker · Three Days of the Condor (1975) as J. Higgins
Career snapshot
Ranked #3949 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1956–2007
Career length
51 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Spider-Man
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Spider-Man
Most frequent director
Sam Raimi
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Sam Raimi
Most common genre
Action
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 58m
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
2000s
7.3 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Spider-Man 3, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
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
2000s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Autumn Leaves.
Most productive era
1970s
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 | 1950s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.62 films | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Action | — | 6.61 film | — | 5.91 film | 7.33 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.82 films | 6.21 film | 5.91 film | — |
| Comedy | — | — | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1956Autumn Leaves
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Burt Hanson.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2002Spider-Man
7.7 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
2007Spider-Man 3
The current state of the argument, as Ben Parker.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Ben Parker
Directed by Sam Raimi
as J. Higgins
Directed by Sydney Pollack
as Ben Parker
Directed by Sam Raimi
as Michael Courtland
Directed by Brian De Palma
as Burt Hanson
Directed by Robert Aldrich
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
Ben Parker
Spider-Man (2002)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ben Parker gives Cliff Robertson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
J. Higgins
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Performance score7.5
Three Days of the Condor asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. J. Higgins is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ben Parker
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Performance score7.3
Spider-Man 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ben Parker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Michael Courtland
Obsession (1976)
Performance score7.3
Obsession asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Michael Courtland 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 Ben Parker
Start here. Spider-Man is the clearest statement of what Cliff Robertson does — accessible, 121 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cliff 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.
Autumn Leaves (1956)
A deliberate change of key after Spider-Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
Keeps the mystery register of Autumn Leaves but asks for a colder reading of it.
Obsession (1976)
Keeps the mystery register of Three Days of the Condor but asks for a colder reading of it.
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
A deliberate change of key after Obsession — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sam Raimi
Director
3 films together
Notably Spider-Man
Robert Aldrich
Director
1 film together
Notably Autumn Leaves
Sydney Pollack
Director
1 film together
Notably Three Days of the Condor
Brian De Palma
Director
1 film together
Notably Obsession
Jack Smight
Director
1 film together
Notably Midway
Douglas Trumbull
Director
1 film together
Notably Brainstorm
Penny Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Renaissance Man
John Carpenter
Director
1 film together
Notably Escape from L.A.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Sam Raimi
Director
3 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Spider-ManSydney Pollack
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Three Days of the CondorJack Smight
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MidwayBrian De Palma
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ObsessionRobert Aldrich
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Autumn LeavesDouglas Trumbull
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BrainstormPenny Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Renaissance ManJohn Carpenter
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Escape from L.A.Six 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
Spider-Man
as Ben Parker
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Autumn Leaves
as Burt Hanson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Spider-Man
as Ben Parker
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Spider-Man 3
as Ben Parker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spider-Man
as Ben 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. Cliff Robertson 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
51 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
Three Days of the Condor
as J. Higgins
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Three Days of the Condor
as J. Higgins
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Autumn Leaves
as Burt Hanson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Three Days of the Condor
as J. Higgins
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spider-Man 2
as Ben Parker
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Spider-Man 2
as Ben Parker
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Midway
as Cmdr. Jessop
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Spider-Man
as Ben Parker
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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