Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#38672
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Levon Helm represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and Levon is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Levon Helm appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Levon. The Right Stuff is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, drama, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for music, history, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Roher, Antoine Fuqua, Félix Alcalá and others, Levon Helm 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 Right Stuff (1983) as Jack Ridley / Narrator · The Last Waltz (1978) as Self · Shooter (2007) as Mr. Rate
Career snapshot
Ranked #38672 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1978–2020
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
The Right Stuff
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
The Last Waltz
Most frequent director
Daniel Roher
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Roher
Most common genre
Music
3 titles
Average runtime
2h 7m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.9
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
1970s
7.2 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. The Last Waltz — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.7
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. The Last Waltz.
Most productive era
1980s
2 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.12 films | — | 7.11 film | — |
| Action | — | — | 5.81 film | 7.11 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.81 film | 7.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1978The Last Waltz
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Self. 7.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2020Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band
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.
6 of 6 films
as Self
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Ted Webb
Directed by Michael Apted
as Jack Ridley / Narrator
Directed by Philip Kaufman
as Mr. Rate
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
as Self (archive footage)
Directed by Daniel Roher
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
Self
The Last Waltz (1978)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Levon Helm a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ted Webb
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
Performance score7.3
Coal Miner's Daughter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ted Webb is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jack Ridley / Narrator
The Right Stuff (1983)
Performance score7.1
The Right Stuff asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jack Ridley / Narrator is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mr. Rate
Shooter (2007)
Performance score7.0
Shooter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Rate 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 Self
Start here. The Last Waltz is the clearest statement of what Levon Helm does — accessible, 117 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Levon 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.
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
Keeps the music register of The Last Waltz but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Right Stuff (1983)
Keeps the drama register of Coal Miner's Daughter but asks for a colder reading of it.
Shooter (2007)
Keeps the drama register of The Right Stuff but asks for a colder reading of it.
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Shooter — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Waltz
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably Coal Miner's Daughter
Philip Kaufman
Director
1 film together
Notably The Right Stuff
Félix Alcalá
Director
1 film together
Notably Fire Down Below
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably Shooter
Daniel Roher
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Philip Kaufman
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Right StuffMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last WaltzAntoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ShooterMichael Apted
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Coal Miner's DaughterDaniel Roher
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the BandFélix Alcalá
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fire Down BelowSix 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
Shooter
as Mr. Rate
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Right Stuff
as Jack Ridley / Narrator
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 Last Waltz
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Shooter
as Mr. Rate
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Last Waltz
as Self
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. Levon Helm 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
42 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.
Music Legend
Awarded
3 catalogue titles in music, 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 Last Waltz
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Shooter
as Mr. Rate
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Right Stuff
as Jack Ridley / Narrator
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fire Down Below
as Reverend Bob Goodall
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Shooter
as Mr. Rate
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Shooter
as Mr. Rate
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band
as Self (archive footage)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band
as Self (archive footage)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
Community
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