Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5152
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Neil Summers represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Neil is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Neil Summers appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Neil. The Shawshank Redemption is the clearest case: a film rated 9.1 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 western, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ed Harris, Terence Hill, Frank Darabont and others, Neil Summers 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 Shawshank Redemption (1994) as Pete · RoboCop (1987) as Dougy · Murder in the First (1995) as Alcatraz Guard Whitney
Career snapshot
Ranked #5152 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1972–2008
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.1
The Shawshank Redemption
Average Nutevio score
6.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
The Shawshank Redemption
Most frequent director
Terence Hill
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Terence Hill
Most common genre
Western
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 49m
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
1980s
7.4 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. RoboCop — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.4
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. My Name Is Nobody, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Ulzana's Raid.
Most productive era
1990s
6 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.41 film | — | 8.12 films | 6.61 film |
| Action | — | 7.41 film | — | — |
| Thriller | — | 7.41 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.82 films | — | 6.13 films | — |
| Crime | — | — | 7.53 films | 6.61 film |
| Romance | — | — | 6.02 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1972The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Snake River Rufus Krile.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.1 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
2008Appaloosa
The current state of the argument, as Bragg's Fourth Man.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Pete
Directed by Frank Darabont
as Dougy
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
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
Pete
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Performance score8.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Pete gives Neil Summers a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dougy
RoboCop (1987)
Performance score7.2
RoboCop asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dougy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Alcatraz Guard Whitney
Murder in the First (1995)
Performance score7.0
Murder in the First asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alcatraz Guard Whitney is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Squirrel
My Name Is Nobody (1973)
Performance score7.0
My Name Is Nobody asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Squirrel 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 Pete
Start here. The Shawshank Redemption is the clearest statement of what Neil Summers does — accessible, 142 minutes, and rated 9.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Neil 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.
My Name Is Nobody (1973)
A deliberate change of key after The Shawshank Redemption — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
RoboCop (1987)
A deliberate change of key after My Name Is Nobody — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Murder in the First (1995)
A deliberate change of key after RoboCop — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Appaloosa (2008)
Keeps the crime register of Murder in the First but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Terence Hill
Director
2 films together
Notably Troublemakers
John Sturges
Director
1 film together
Notably Joe Kidd
Robert Aldrich
Director
1 film together
Notably Ulzana's Raid
John Huston
Director
1 film together
Notably The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
Tonino Valerii
Director
1 film together
Notably My Name Is Nobody
Paul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together
Notably RoboCop
Warren Beatty
Director
1 film together
Notably Dick Tracy
Jonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together
Notably Bad Girls
Frank Darabont
Director
1 film together
Notably The Shawshank Redemption
Ed Harris
Director
1 film together
Notably Appaloosa
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Terence Hill
Director
2 films together · 6.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
TroublemakersFrank Darabont
Director
1 film together · 9.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Shawshank RedemptionPaul Verhoeven
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RoboCopTonino Valerii
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Name Is NobodyEd Harris
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AppaloosaRobert Aldrich
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ulzana's RaidJohn Huston
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Life and Times of Judge Roy BeanJohn Sturges
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joe KiddWarren Beatty
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dick TracyJonathan Kaplan
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bad GirlsSix 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
The Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Troublemakers
as Dodge
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 Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ulzana's Raid
as Trooper (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
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. Neil Summers 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.
Western Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in western, 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 Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Troublemakers
as Dodge
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
RoboCop
as Dougy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Shawshank Redemption
as Pete
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Bad Girls
as Ned, Jarrett Gang
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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Reference
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