Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6750
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Nick Stahl represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 33 years in, and Nick is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Nick Stahl appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nick. Sin City 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 drama, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tomek Bagiński, Richard Loncraine, Frank Miller and others, Nick Stahl 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.
Sin City (2005) as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard · The Thin Red Line (1998) as Pfc. Edward Bead · Gangland (2025) as Darius Humphrey
Career snapshot
Ranked #6750 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
1993–2026
Career length
33 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Sin City
Average Nutevio score
5.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Sin City
Most frequent director
Tomek Bagiński
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tomek Bagiński
Most common genre
Drama
9 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
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
2000s
6.8 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. My One and Only, Sin City, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.8
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. The Thin Red Line, Disturbing Behavior, The Man Without a Face.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.02 films | 6.82 films | 3.55 films |
| Action | — | 6.21 film | 6.33 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.93 films | 5.96 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.61 film | — |
| Crime | — | 7.61 film | 5.84 films |
| Horror | 5.81 film | — | 6.12 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Charles E. 'Chuck' Norstadt.
Highest rated performance
2005Sin City
7.6 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
The current state of the argument, as Chris.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
Directed by Frank Miller
as Frank Fowler
Directed by Todd Field
as Pfc. Edward Bead
Directed by Terrence Malick
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
Ryan
What You Wish For (2024)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ryan gives Nick Stahl a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
Sin City (2005)
Performance score7.4
Sin City asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Darius Humphrey
Gangland (2025)
Performance score7.3
Gangland asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Darius Humphrey is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Frank Fowler
In the Bedroom (2001)
Performance score7.3
In the Bedroom asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frank Fowler 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 Ryan
Start here. What You Wish For is the clearest statement of what Nick Stahl does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 6.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nick 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 Thin Red Line (1998)
A deliberate change of key after What You Wish For — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
In the Bedroom (2001)
Keeps the drama register of The Thin Red Line but asks for a colder reading of it.
Sin City (2005)
Keeps the thriller register of In the Bedroom but asks for a colder reading of it.
Gangland (2025)
Keeps the crime register of Sin City but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Mel Gibson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man Without a Face
David Nutter
Director
1 film together
Notably Disturbing Behavior
Terrence Malick
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thin Red Line
Todd Field
Director
1 film together
Notably In the Bedroom
Jonathan Mostow
Director
1 film together
Notably Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Frank Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Sin City
Richard Loncraine
Director
1 film together
Notably My One and Only
Tomek Bagiński
Director
1 film together
Notably Knights of the Zodiac
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Frank Miller
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sin CityTerrence Malick
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Thin Red LineTodd Field
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In the BedroomRichard Loncraine
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My One and OnlyMel Gibson
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man Without a FaceTomek Bagiński
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Knights of the ZodiacJonathan Mostow
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Terminator 3: Rise of the MachinesDavid Nutter
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Disturbing BehaviorSix 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
Sin City
as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
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 Thin Red Line
as Pfc. Edward Bead
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Sin City
as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Thin Red Line
as Pfc. Edward Bead
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
What You Wish For
as Ryan
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. Nick Stahl 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
33 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
9 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
Sin City
as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sin City
as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Man Without a Face
as Charles E. 'Chuck' Norstadt
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Hunter Hunter
as Lou
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gangland
as Darius Humphrey
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Gangland
as Darius Humphrey
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Thin Red Line
as Pfc. Edward Bead
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Sin City
as Roark Jr. / Yellow Bastard
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
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Have your say
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Reference
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