Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8937
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Jason Patric represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Jason is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jason Patric appears in 25 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jason. Sleepers 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 war, action, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Matt Shapira, JT Mollner, Demián Bichir and others, Jason Patric 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.
Sleepers (1996) as Shakes · Runt (2020) as Coach Wilkes · The Lost Boys (1987) as Michael Emerson
Career snapshot
Ranked #8937 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
25
1987–2026
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Sleepers
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Sleepers
Most frequent director
Matt Shapira
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Matt Shapira
Most common genre
Thriller
16 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
6.6
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
1980s
7.1 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. The Lost Boys — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.1
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. The Lost Boys.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.93 films | 6.34 films | 6.01 film | 6.25 films |
| Action | — | 5.52 films | — | 6.31 film | 5.86 films |
| Thriller | 7.11 film | 6.12 films | 6.82 films | 5.92 films | 5.99 films |
| Comedy | 7.11 film | — | 5.61 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 7.12 films | 6.82 films | 5.92 films | 5.82 films |
| Romance | — | — | — | — | 6.61 film |
| Horror | 7.11 film | — | — | 5.61 film | 6.15 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
1987The Lost Boys
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Michael Emerson. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
1996Sleepers
7.6 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Man of War
The current state of the argument, as Charlie Lewis.
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.
25 of 25 films
as Shakes
Directed by Barry Levinson
as Michael Emerson
Directed by Joel Schumacher
as Det. Sgt. Nick Tellis
Directed by Joe Carnahan
as Jim Raynor
Directed by Lili Fini Zanuck
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
Shakes
Sleepers (1996)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Shakes gives Jason Patric a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Michael Emerson
The Lost Boys (1987)
Performance score7.7
The Lost Boys asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Michael Emerson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Coach Wilkes
Runt (2020)
Performance score7.6
Runt asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Coach Wilkes is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Det. Sgt. Nick Tellis
Narc (2002)
Performance score7.4
Narc asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Det. Sgt. Nick Tellis 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 Shakes
Start here. Sleepers is the clearest statement of what Jason Patric does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jason 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 Lost Boys (1987)
Keeps the thriller register of Sleepers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Rush (1991)
A deliberate change of key after The Lost Boys — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Narc (2002)
Keeps the crime register of Rush but asks for a colder reading of it.
Runt (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Narc but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Joel Schumacher
Director
1 film together
Notably The Lost Boys
Lili Fini Zanuck
Director
1 film together
Notably Rush
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Geronimo: An American Legend
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together
Notably Sleepers
Jan de Bont
Director
1 film together
Notably Speed 2: Cruise Control
Joe Carnahan
Director
1 film together
Notably Narc
John Lee Hancock
Director
1 film together
Notably The Alamo
Alec Baldwin
Director
1 film together
Notably Shortcut to Happiness
Paul Haggis
Director
1 film together
Notably In the Valley of Elah
Sylvain White
Director
1 film together
Notably The Losers
Peter Facinelli
Director
1 film together
Notably The Vanished
Demián Bichir
Director
1 film together
Notably A Circus Tale & A Love Song
JT Mollner
Director
1 film together
Notably Strange Darling
Matt Shapira
Director
1 film together
Notably A Line of Fire
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Barry Levinson
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SleepersJoel Schumacher
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 Lost BoysJT Mollner
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Strange DarlingPaul Haggis
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In the Valley of ElahJoe Carnahan
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NarcDemián Bichir
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Circus Tale & A Love SongLili Fini Zanuck
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RushWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Geronimo: An American LegendSylvain White
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 LosersPeter Facinelli
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The VanishedMatt Shapira
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Line of FireJohn Lee Hancock
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AlamoAlec Baldwin
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Shortcut to HappinessJan de Bont
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Speed 2: Cruise ControlSix 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
Sleepers
as Shakes
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Circus Tale & A Love Song
as Ralph
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Sleepers
as Shakes
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Shortcut to Happiness
as Ray (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Sleepers
as Shakes
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. Jason Patric 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
39 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
16 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
Sleepers
as Shakes
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sleepers
as Shakes
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Circus Tale & A Love Song
as Ralph
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
In the Valley of Elah
as Lieutenant Kirklander
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Geronimo: An American Legend
as Lt. Charles Gatewood
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Geronimo: An American Legend
as Lt. Charles Gatewood
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Sleepers
as Shakes
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Geronimo: An American Legend
as Lt. Charles Gatewood
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
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Reference
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