Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3039
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Phil Daniels represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 47 years in, and Phil is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Phil Daniels appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Phil. Partygate is the clearest case: a film rated 6.9 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for tv movie, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Joseph Bullman, Dawn Shadforth, Nick Park and others, Phil Daniels 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.
Partygate (2023) as Mickey Port · Chicken Run (2000) as Fetcher (voice) · Quadrophenia (1979) as James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
Career snapshot
Ranked #3039 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1976–2023
Career length
47 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.9
Partygate
Average Nutevio score
4.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Quadrophenia
Most frequent director
Joseph Bullman
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Joseph Bullman
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
6.5
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
6.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Chicken Run — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film 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
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Quadrophenia, Bugsy Malone.
Most productive era
1970s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | — | — | 3.52 films |
| Action | 6.51 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.91 film | — | 0.01 film |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1976Bugsy Malone
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Waiter Who Spills Spaghetti.
Career peak
1979Quadrophenia
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2000Chicken Run
6.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2023Partygate
The current state of the argument, as Mickey Port.
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 James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
Directed by Franc Roddam
as Mickey Port
Directed by Joseph Bullman
as Fetcher (voice)
Directed by Nick Park
as Phil
Directed by Dawn Shadforth
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
James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
Quadrophenia (1979)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper gives Phil Daniels a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mickey Port
Partygate (2023)
Performance score6.8
Partygate asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mickey Port is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Fetcher (voice)
Chicken Run (2000)
Performance score6.8
Chicken Run asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fetcher (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Phil
I Hate Suzie Too (2022)
Performance score6.5
I Hate Suzie Too asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Phil 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 James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
Start here. Quadrophenia is the clearest statement of what Phil Daniels does — accessible, 120 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Phil 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.
Chicken Run (2000)
A deliberate change of key after Quadrophenia — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Quadrophenia: Our Generation (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Chicken Run — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
I Hate Suzie Too (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Quadrophenia: Our Generation — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Partygate (2023)
Keeps the drama register of I Hate Suzie Too but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Alan Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably Bugsy Malone
Franc Roddam
Director
1 film together
Notably Quadrophenia
Nick Park
Director
1 film together
Notably Chicken Run
Dawn Shadforth
Director
1 film together
Notably I Hate Suzie Too
Joseph Bullman
Director
1 film together
Notably Partygate
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Joseph Bullman
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PartygateNick Park
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Chicken RunFranc Roddam
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
QuadropheniaAlan Parker
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bugsy MaloneDawn Shadforth
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Hate Suzie TooSix 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
Quadrophenia
as James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Quadrophenia
as James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Quadrophenia
as James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Bugsy Malone
as Waiter Who Spills Spaghetti
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Quadrophenia
as James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
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. Phil Daniels 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
47 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
4 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
Chicken Run
as Fetcher (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Partygate
as Mickey Port
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Quadrophenia
as James Michael 'Jimmy' Cooper
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Partygate
as Mickey Port
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Bugsy Malone
as Waiter Who Spills Spaghetti
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Bugsy Malone
as Waiter Who Spills Spaghetti
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bugsy Malone
as Waiter Who Spills Spaghetti
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Chicken Run
as Fetcher (voice)
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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