Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6774
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Marc McClure represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 45 years in, and Marc is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Marc McClure appears in 19 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Marc. Back to the Future is the clearest case: a film rated 8.6 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 action, fantasy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Zack Snyder, Ron Howard, Thomas Carter and others, Marc McClure 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.
Back to the Future (1985) as Dave McFly · Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) as Jerry · Back to the Future Part II (1989) as Dave McFly (uncredited)
Career snapshot
Ranked #6774 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
19
1976–2021
Career length
45 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.6
Back to the Future
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Back to the Future
Most frequent director
Robert Zemeckis
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With Robert Zemeckis
Most common genre
Comedy
10 titles
Average runtime
2h 2m
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
7.1
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
2020s
8.2 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Zack Snyder's Justice League — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
8.2
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
8.1
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. Superman, Coming Home, Freaky Friday.
Most productive era
1980s
8 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 | 6.71 film | — | 7.22 films | 7.42 films | — | — |
| Action | 7.21 film | 5.93 films | — | — | 6.11 film | 8.21 film |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | 6.96 films | 7.22 films | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.61 film | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1976Freaky Friday
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Boris Harris.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.6 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
2021Zack Snyder's Justice League
The current state of the argument, as Jerry.
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.
19 of 19 films
as Dave McFly
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
as Jerry
Directed by Zack Snyder
as Dave McFly (uncredited)
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
as Dave McFly
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
as Susan's Dad
Directed by Thomas Carter
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
Dave McFly
Back to the Future (1985)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Dave McFly gives Marc McClure a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jerry
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Performance score7.9
Zack Snyder's Justice League asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jerry is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Dave McFly (uncredited)
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Performance score7.7
Back to the Future Part II asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dave McFly (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Dave McFly
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Performance score7.4
Back to the Future Part III asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dave McFly 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 Dave McFly
Start here. Back to the Future is the clearest statement of what Marc McClure does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 8.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Marc 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.
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
Same director as Back to the Future, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Same director as Back to the Future Part II, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Coach Carter (2005)
A deliberate change of key after Back to the Future Part III — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Coach Carter — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Zemeckis
Director
4 films together
Notably Back to the Future
Richard Lester
Director
2 films together
Notably Superman II
Ron Howard
Director
2 films together
Notably Apollo 13
Zack Snyder
Director
2 films together
Notably Zack Snyder's Justice League
Gary Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably Freaky Friday
Hal Ashby
Director
1 film together
Notably Coming Home
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman
Robert K. Weiss
Director
1 film together
Notably Amazon Women on the Moon
Sidney J. Furie
Director
1 film together
Notably Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Emile Ardolino
Director
1 film together
Notably Chances Are
Tom Hanks
Director
1 film together
Notably That Thing You Do!
Mark Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Freaky Friday
Thomas Carter
Director
1 film together
Notably Coach Carter
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Robert Zemeckis
Director
4 films together · 7.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Back to the FutureRon Howard
Director
2 films together · 7.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Apollo 13Zack Snyder
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
Zack Snyder's Justice LeagueRichard Lester
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Superman IIThomas Carter
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Coach CarterRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SupermanTom Hanks
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
That Thing You Do!Hal Ashby
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Coming HomeMark Waters
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freaky FridayEmile Ardolino
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chances AreGary Nelson
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Freaky FridayRobert K. Weiss
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Amazon Women on the MoonSidney J. Furie
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superman IV: The Quest for PeaceSix 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
Back to the Future
as Dave McFly
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Apollo 13
as Glynn Lunney
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Back to the Future
as Dave McFly
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Amazon Women on the Moon
as Ray (segment "Video Date")
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Back to the Future
as Dave McFly
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. Marc McClure 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
45 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Zack Snyder's Justice League
as Jerry
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Zack Snyder's Justice League
as Jerry
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Frost/Nixon
as Network Executive
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Zack Snyder's Justice League
as Jerry
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Zack Snyder's Justice League
as Jerry
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Zack Snyder's Justice League
as Jerry
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
That Thing You Do!
as Hollywood Showcase Director
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
as Jimmy Olsen
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
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Tom Wilkinson
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and adventure
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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