Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#19088
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Craig Fairbrass represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Craig is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Craig Fairbrass appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Craig. The Bank Job is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nick Nevern, Jesse V. Johnson, Roger Donaldson and others, Craig Fairbrass 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 Bank Job (2008) as Nick Barton · Avengement (2019) as Lincoln Burgess · Cliffhanger (1993) as Delmar
Career snapshot
Ranked #19088 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1993–2026
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
The Bank Job
Average Nutevio score
5.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.9
The Bank Job
Most frequent director
Nick Nevern
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Nick Nevern
Most common genre
Action
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
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
6.4
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
6.5 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Cliffhanger — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.5
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. Cliffhanger.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.91 film | — | 5.62 films |
| Action | 6.51 film | — | 6.12 films | 3.73 films |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | 6.32 films | 6.81 film | 2.82 films |
| Crime | — | 6.91 film | 6.12 films | 2.82 films |
| Horror | — | 5.61 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1993Cliffhanger
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Delmar.
Highest rated performance
2008The Bank Job
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2019Avengement
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution
The current state of the argument, as Tate.
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.
8 of 8 films
as Lincoln Burgess
Directed by Jesse V. Johnson
as Nick Barton
Directed by Roger Donaldson
as Pat Tate
Directed by Nick Nevern
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
Lincoln Burgess
Avengement (2019)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Lincoln Burgess gives Craig Fairbrass a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Nick Barton
The Bank Job (2008)
Performance score6.8
The Bank Job asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nick Barton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tate
Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution (2026)
Performance score6.5
Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tate is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Pat Tate
Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance (2023)
Performance score6.5
Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pat Tate 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 Lincoln Burgess
Start here. Avengement is the clearest statement of what Craig Fairbrass does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Craig 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 Bank Job (2008)
Keeps the crime register of Avengement but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins (2021)
Keeps the crime register of The Bank Job but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance (2023)
Same director as Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution (2026)
Same director as Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Nick Nevern
Director
3 films together
Notably Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance
Renny Harlin
Director
1 film together
Notably Cliffhanger
Patrick Lussier
Director
1 film together
Notably White Noise 2: The Light
Roger Donaldson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bank Job
Jesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together
Notably Avengement
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Nick Nevern
Director
3 films together · 3.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Rise of the Footsoldier: VengeanceRoger Donaldson
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bank JobJesse V. Johnson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AvengementRenny Harlin
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CliffhangerPatrick Lussier
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
White Noise 2: The LightSix 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 Bank Job
as Nick Barton
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance
as Pat Tate
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 Bank Job
as Nick Barton
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Bank Job
as Nick Barton
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Avengement
as Lincoln Burgess
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. Craig Fairbrass 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
33 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
6 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
Avengement
as Lincoln Burgess
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Avengement
as Lincoln Burgess
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rise of the Footsoldier: Vengeance
as Pat Tate
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Avengement
as Lincoln Burgess
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Cliffhanger
as Delmar
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Cliffhanger
as Delmar
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Bank Job
as Nick Barton
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
White Noise 2: The Light
as Henry Caine
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
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 thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Ted Levine
Built a career in the same territory: crime and thriller
Have your say
Community
Which Craig Fairbrass 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
