Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2661
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Clive Owen represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Clive is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Clive Owen appears in 30 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Clive. Children of Men 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 action, thriller, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Martin Campbell, François Girard, Ang Lee and others, Clive Owen 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.
Children of Men (2006) as Theo Faron · Sin City (2005) as Dwight · Inside Man (2006) as Dalton Russell
Career snapshot
Ranked #2661 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
30
1997–2025
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Children of Men
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Children of Men
Most frequent director
Martin Campbell
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Martin Campbell
Most common genre
Thriller
17 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
6.6
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
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Croupier, Bent — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Croupier, Bent.
Most productive era
2000s
13 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 | 6.82 films | 6.77 films | 6.57 films | 5.71 film |
| Action | — | 6.95 films | 6.44 films | 6.61 film |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 7.08 films | 6.17 films | 6.61 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.22 films | 6.41 film | — |
| Crime | — | 6.85 films | 6.23 films | — |
| Romance | 6.91 film | 6.63 films | 6.62 films | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1997Bent
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Max.
Highest rated performance
2005Sin City
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2006Children of Men
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025Cleaner
The current state of the argument, as Marcus Blake.
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.
30 of 30 films
as Theo Faron
Directed by Alfonso Cuarón
as Dwight
Directed by Frank Miller
as Dalton Russell
Directed by Spike Lee
as The Professor
Directed by Doug Liman
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
Theo Faron
Children of Men (2006)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Theo Faron gives Clive Owen a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dwight
Sin City (2005)
Performance score7.9
Sin City asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dwight is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dalton Russell
Inside Man (2006)
Performance score7.8
Inside Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dalton Russell is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
The Professor
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Performance score7.6
The Bourne Identity asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Professor 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 Theo Faron
Start here. Children of Men is the clearest statement of what Clive Owen does — accessible, 109 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Clive 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.
The Bourne Identity (2002)
Keeps the action register of Children of Men but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sin City (2005)
Keeps the thriller register of The Bourne Identity but asks for a colder reading of it.
Inside Man (2006)
Keeps the crime register of Sin City but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ophelia (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Inside Man but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Campbell
Director
2 films together
Notably Cleaner
Mike Hodges
Director
1 film together
Notably Croupier
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably Gosford Park
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bourne Identity
Mike Nichols
Director
1 film together
Notably Closer
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably King Arthur
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together
Notably Derailed
Frank Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Sin City
Alfonso Cuarón
Director
1 film together
Notably Children of Men
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably The Pink Panther
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Inside Man
Shekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together
Notably Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Tom Tykwer
Director
1 film together
Notably The International
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Director
1 film together
Notably Intruders
Philip Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably Hemingway & Gellhorn
James Marsh
Director
1 film together
Notably Shadow Dancer
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Andrew Niccol
Director
1 film together
Notably Anon
Ang Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Gemini Man
François Girard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Song of Names
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Martin Campbell
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
CleanerAlfonso Cuarón
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Children of MenFrank Miller
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sin CitySpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inside ManDoug Liman
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bourne IdentityMike Nichols
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CloserRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gosford ParkFrançois Girard
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Song of NamesLuc Besson
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Valerian and the City of a Thousand PlanetsShekhar Kapur
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Elizabeth: The Golden AgeMike Hodges
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CroupierMikael Håfström
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DerailedAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
King ArthurAng Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gemini ManTom Tykwer
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The InternationalPhilip Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hemingway & GellhornAndrew Niccol
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AnonJames Marsh
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shadow DancerShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Pink PantherJuan Carlos Fresnadillo
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IntrudersSix 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
Sin City
as Dwight
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Ophelia
as Claudius
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Sin City
as Dwight
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Pink Panther
as Nigel Boswell / Agent 006 (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Children of Men
as Theo Faron
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. Clive Owen 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
28 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
17 catalogue titles in thriller, 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 Bourne Identity
as The Professor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sin City
as Dwight
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Song of Names
as Dovidl Rapoport
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Anon
as Sal Frieland
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Children of Men
as Theo Faron
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Gemini Man
as Clay Verris
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Inside Man
as Dalton Russell
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Sin City
as Dwight
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
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Clive Owen 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
