Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#30355
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Richard Burton represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 73 years in, and Richard is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Richard Burton appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Richard. Where Eagles Dare is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 documentary, science fiction, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nanette Burstein, Michael Radford, John Boorman and others, Richard Burton 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.
Where Eagles Dare (1968) as Maj. Smith · The Longest Day (1962) as Flight Officer David Campbell · Zulu (1964) as Narration spoken (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #30355 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1952–2025
Career length
73 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Where Eagles Dare
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
The Longest Day
Most frequent director
Henry Koster
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Henry Koster
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
2h 12m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
7.0
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
1960s
7.1 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. Where Eagles Dare, Becket, Zulu — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.1
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Alexander the Great, The Desert Rats, The Robe.
Most productive era
1960s
5 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 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 7.04 films | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Action | 6.31 film | 7.31 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 6.81 film | — |
| Romance | 6.51 film | 6.91 film | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1952My Cousin Rachel
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Philip Ashley.
Highest rated performance
1962The Longest Day
7.3 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
2025Richard Burton: Wild Genius
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.
13 of 13 films
as Thomas Becket
Directed by Peter Glenville
as Flight Officer David Campbell
Directed by Andrew Marton
as Marcellus Gallio
Directed by Henry Koster
as Marcus Antonius
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
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
Maj. Smith
Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Maj. Smith gives Richard Burton a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Thomas Becket
Becket (1964)
Performance score7.4
Becket asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Thomas Becket is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Flight Officer David Campbell
The Longest Day (1962)
Performance score7.4
The Longest Day asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Flight Officer David Campbell is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Marcellus Gallio
The Robe (1953)
Performance score7.4
The Robe asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marcellus Gallio 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 Maj. Smith
Start here. Where Eagles Dare is the clearest statement of what Richard Burton does — accessible, 155 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Richard 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 Robe (1953)
A deliberate change of key after Where Eagles Dare — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Longest Day (1962)
Keeps the drama register of The Robe but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cleopatra (1963)
Keeps the drama register of The Longest Day but asks for a colder reading of it.
Becket (1964)
Keeps the drama register of Cleopatra but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Henry Koster
Director
2 films together
Notably The Robe
Robert Wise
Director
1 film together
Notably The Desert Rats
Robert Rossen
Director
1 film together
Notably Alexander the Great
Andrew Marton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Longest Day
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Director
1 film together
Notably Cleopatra
Cy Endfield
Director
1 film together
Notably Zulu
Peter Glenville
Director
1 film together
Notably Becket
Brian G. Hutton
Director
1 film together
Notably Where Eagles Dare
John Boorman
Director
1 film together
Notably Exorcist II: The Heretic
Michael Radford
Director
1 film together
Notably Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nanette Burstein
Director
1 film together
Notably Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Henry Koster
Director
2 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The RobeBrian G. Hutton
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Where Eagles DareAndrew Marton
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Longest DayCy Endfield
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ZuluJoseph L. Mankiewicz
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CleopatraMichael Radford
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nineteen Eighty-FourPeter Glenville
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BecketNanette Burstein
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost TapesRobert Wise
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Desert RatsRobert Rossen
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alexander the GreatJohn Boorman
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Exorcist II: The HereticSix 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
Zulu
as Narration spoken (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Cleopatra
as Marcus Antonius
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 Longest Day
as Flight Officer David Campbell
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Zulu
as Narration spoken (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Where Eagles Dare
as Maj. Smith
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. Richard Burton 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
73 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
8 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
The Longest Day
as Flight Officer David Campbell
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Longest Day
as Flight Officer David Campbell
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Cleopatra
as Marcus Antonius
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
My Cousin Rachel
as Philip Ashley
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Longest Day
as Flight Officer David Campbell
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Longest Day
as Flight Officer David Campbell
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Longest Day
as Flight Officer David Campbell
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Exorcist II: The Heretic
as Father Philip Lamont
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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