Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2010
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Hugh Bonneville represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 32 years in, and Hugh is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Hugh Bonneville appears in 30 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hugh. Breathe is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Simon Curtis, Chris Foggin, Mark Greenstreet and others, Hugh Bonneville 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.
Breathe (2017) as Teddy Hall · Notting Hill (1999) as Bernie · Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) as Robert Crawley
Career snapshot
Ranked #2010 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
30
1994–2026
Career length
32 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Breathe
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Breathe
Most frequent director
Simon Curtis
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Simon Curtis
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Notting Hill, Tomorrow Never Dies, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.7
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. Notting Hill, Tomorrow Never Dies, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Most productive era
2020s
19 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 | 6.51 film | 6.22 films | 6.53 films | 6.67 films |
| Action | 6.41 film | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | 6.41 film | — | 6.12 films | 5.82 films |
| Comedy | 7.31 film | 5.91 film | 6.31 film | 5.68 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.22 films | 6.42 films |
| Romance | 6.92 films | 6.41 film | 7.41 film | 7.12 films |
| Horror | 6.51 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Schiller.
Highest rated performance
2017Breathe
7.4 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
2026Cold War 1994
The current state of the argument, as Chris Hughes.
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 Teddy Hall
Directed by Andy Serkis
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
Robert Crawley
Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Robert Crawley gives Hugh Bonneville a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Teddy Hall
Breathe (2017)
Performance score7.7
Breathe asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Teddy Hall is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Narrator
Madame Tussauds: The Full Wax (2021)
Performance score7.6
Madame Tussauds: The Full Wax asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Narrator is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Roald Dahl
To Olivia (2021)
Performance score7.5
To Olivia asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Roald Dahl 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 Robert Crawley
Start here. Downton Abbey: A New Era is the clearest statement of what Hugh Bonneville does — accessible, 124 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hugh 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.
Breathe (2017)
Keeps the romance register of Downton Abbey: A New Era but asks for a colder reading of it.
Madame Tussauds: The Full Wax (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Breathe — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
To Olivia (2021)
Same director as Madame Tussauds: The Full Wax, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025)
Keeps the drama register of To Olivia but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Chris Foggin
Director
2 films together
Notably Bank of Dave 2: The Loan Ranger
Simon Curtis
Director
2 films together
Notably Downton Abbey: A New Era
Kenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together
Notably Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Roger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together
Notably Tomorrow Never Dies
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Notting Hill
Paddy Breathnach
Director
1 film together
Notably Blow Dry
Mikael Håfström
Director
1 film together
Notably Shanghai
James Bobin
Director
1 film together
Notably Muppets Most Wanted
George Clooney
Director
1 film together
Notably The Monuments Men
Andy Serkis
Director
1 film together
Notably Breathe
Matt Lipsey
Director
1 film together
Notably Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime for Christmas
Barbara Wiltshire
Director
1 film together
Notably Miranda: My Such Fun Celebration
Mark Greenstreet
Director
1 film together
Notably Silent Hours
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Simon Curtis
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Downton Abbey: A New EraChris Foggin
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Bank of Dave 2: The Loan RangerAndy Serkis
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BreatheRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Notting HillKenneth Branagh
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mary Shelley's FrankensteinRoger Spottiswoode
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tomorrow Never DiesBarbara Wiltshire
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miranda: My Such Fun CelebrationMatt Lipsey
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime for ChristmasJames Bobin
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Muppets Most WantedGeorge Clooney
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Monuments MenMikael Håfström
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShanghaiPaddy Breathnach
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blow DryMark Greenstreet
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Silent HoursSix 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
Breathe
as Teddy Hall
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Breathe
as Teddy Hall
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Notting Hill
as Bernie
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Tomorrow Never Dies
as HMS Bedford Air Warfare Officer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Downton Abbey: A New Era
as Robert Crawley
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. Hugh Bonneville 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
32 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
13 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
Mummies
as Lord Sylvester Carnaby (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Cold War 1994
as Chris Hughes
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale
as Robert Crawley
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Shanghai
as Ben Sanger
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Tomorrow Never Dies
as HMS Bedford Air Warfare Officer
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tomorrow Never Dies
as HMS Bedford Air Warfare Officer
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Amazing Maurice
as The Mayor (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
as Schiller
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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