Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9101
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ethan Phillips represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Ethan is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Ethan Phillips appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ethan. Star Trek: First Contact is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 mystery, horror, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with James DeMonaco, Jay Roach, Woody Allen and others, Ethan Phillips 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.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996) as Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited) · Glory (1989) as Hospital Steward · Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) as Mitch Gorfein
Career snapshot
Ranked #9101 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1989–2025
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Star Trek: First Contact
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Glory
Most frequent director
James DeMonaco
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With James DeMonaco
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
1980s
7.3 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Glory — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.3
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Glory.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.31 film | 6.61 film | 6.01 film | 6.83 films | 6.71 film |
| Action | — | 7.31 film | 6.71 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.31 film | 6.71 film | — | 6.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 5.31 film | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Horror | — | 5.31 film | — | — | 6.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1989Glory
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hospital Steward. 7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
20201
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025The Home
The current state of the argument, as Ethan.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited)
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
as Hospital Steward
Directed by Edward Zwick
as Ethan
Directed by James DeMonaco
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
Boss
1 (2020)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Boss gives Ethan Phillips a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mitch Gorfein
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
Performance score7.3
Inside Llewyn Davis asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mitch Gorfein is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited)
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Performance score7.2
Star Trek: First Contact asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Hospital Steward
Glory (1989)
Performance score7.2
Glory asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hospital Steward 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 Boss
Start here. 1 is the clearest statement of what Ethan Phillips does — accessible, 100 minutes, and rated 6.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ethan 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.
Glory (1989)
Keeps the drama register of 1 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
A deliberate change of key after Glory — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
A deliberate change of key after Star Trek: First Contact — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Home (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Inside Llewyn Davis — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Glory
Mel Gibson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man Without a Face
Jonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: First Contact
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably The Island
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably Inside Llewyn Davis
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Irrational Man
Jay Roach
Director
1 film together
Notably All the Way
James DeMonaco
Director
1 film together
Notably The Home
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jonathan Frakes
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: First ContactEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GloryJoel Coen
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inside Llewyn DavisJames DeMonaco
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HomeJay Roach
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All the WayMichael Bay
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 IslandMel Gibson
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 Man Without a FaceWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Irrational ManSix 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
Glory
as Hospital Steward
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Mitch Gorfein
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Glory
as Hospital Steward
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Glory
as Hospital Steward
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
1
as Boss
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. Ethan Phillips 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
36 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
7 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 Home
as Ethan
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Star Trek: First Contact
as Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Inside Llewyn Davis
as Mitch Gorfein
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Home
as Ethan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Trek: First Contact
as Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Star Trek: First Contact
as Holodock Nightclub Maitre d' (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Glory
as Hospital Steward
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
All the Way
as Joe Alsop
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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