Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3605
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
David Carradine represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 54 years in, and David is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
David Carradine appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Quentin Tarantino, Brian Taylor, Larry Bishop and others, David Carradine 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.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) as Bill · Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) as Bill 'Snake Charmer' · Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2011) as Bill (Snake Charmer)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3605 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1972–2026
Career length
54 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Most frequent director
Quentin Tarantino
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Quentin Tarantino
Most common genre
Crime
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
6.7
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
2010s
7.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Death Race 2000, The Long Goodbye, Mean Streets.
Most productive era
2000s
7 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 | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.63 films | 6.61 film | — | — | — | — |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.61 film | — | 6.85 films | 7.81 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 6.44 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.31 film | — | 6.21 film | 5.32 films | — | — |
| Crime | 6.63 films | 6.32 films | — | 7.24 films | 7.81 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | 6.21 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | 6.01 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1972Boxcar Bertha
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Big Bill Shelly.
Highest rated performance
8.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Mata Hari
The current state of the argument, as Self (archive footage).
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.
17 of 17 films
as Bill 'Snake Charmer'
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Bill (Snake Charmer)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Cole Younger
Directed by Walter Hill
as The Master
Directed by Rob Schneider
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
Bill 'Snake Charmer'
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bill 'Snake Charmer' gives David Carradine a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bill
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Performance score8.2
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bill (Snake Charmer)
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2011)
Performance score7.8
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bill (Snake Charmer) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cole Younger
The Long Riders (1980)
Performance score7.3
The Long Riders asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cole Younger 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 Bill 'Snake Charmer'
Start here. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is the clearest statement of what David Carradine does — accessible, 136 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet David 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 Long Riders (1980)
Keeps the action register of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Keeps the action register of The Long Riders but asks for a colder reading of it.
Big Stan (2007)
Keeps the crime register of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2011)
Keeps the crime register of Big Stan but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Quentin Tarantino
Director
3 films together
Notably Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Martin Scorsese
Director
2 films together
Notably Mean Streets
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Long Goodbye
Paul Bartel
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Race 2000
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably The Long Riders
Larry Cohen
Director
1 film together
Notably Q
John Badham
Director
1 film together
Notably Bird on a Wire
Rob Schneider
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Stan
Aaron Seltzer
Director
1 film together
Notably Epic Movie
Paul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Race
Larry Bishop
Director
1 film together
Notably Hell Ride
Brian Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Crank: High Voltage
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Quentin Tarantino
Director
3 films together · 8.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Kill Bill: Vol. 1Martin Scorsese
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Mean StreetsRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Long GoodbyeRob Schneider
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big StanWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Long RidersPaul W. S. Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death RacePaul Bartel
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death Race 2000John Badham
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bird on a WireBrian Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crank: High VoltageLarry Cohen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
QLarry Bishop
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hell RideAaron Seltzer
Director
1 film together · 3.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Epic 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
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
as Bill 'Snake Charmer'
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Bird on a Wire
as Eugene Sorensen
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
as Bill
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks
as Self (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
as Bill 'Snake Charmer'
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. David Carradine 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
54 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.
Crime Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
as Bill
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
as Bill 'Snake Charmer'
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Bird on a Wire
as Eugene Sorensen
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Long Goodbye
as Dave aka Socrates (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
as Bill
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Long Riders
as Cole Younger
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Boxcar Bertha
as Big Bill Shelly
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Q
as Shepard
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
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — Quentin Tarantino
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
Which David Carradine 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
