Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10045
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Sam Reid works on quiet performance rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Sam Reid appears in 7 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sam. Belle is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, drama, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for western, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Leah Purcell, Ciro Guerra, Juan Carlos Medina and others, Sam Reid 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.
Belle (2013) as John Davinier · The Railway Man (2013) as Young Finlay · The Limehouse Golem (2016) as John Cree
Career snapshot
Ranked #10045 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
7
2013–2022
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Belle
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Belle
Most frequent director
Leah Purcell
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Leah Purcell
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
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
6.2
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
2010s
6.3 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Limehouse Golem, Serena, The Riot Club — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.3
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Limehouse Golem, Serena, The Riot Club.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.34 films | 5.92 films |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 5.91 film |
| Horror | 6.31 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2013The Railway Man
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Young Finlay.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2013Belle
7.1 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
2022The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson
The current state of the argument, as Nate Clintoff.
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.
7 of 7 films
as Young Finlay
Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky
as Nate Clintoff
Directed by Leah Purcell
as John Cree
Directed by Juan Carlos Medina
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
John Davinier
Belle (2013)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. John Davinier gives Sam Reid a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Young Finlay
The Railway Man (2013)
Performance score6.7
The Railway Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Young Finlay is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Nate Clintoff
The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (2022)
Performance score6.5
The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Nate Clintoff is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
The Lieutenant
Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)
Performance score6.5
Waiting for the Barbarians asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The Lieutenant 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 John Davinier
Start here. Belle is the clearest statement of what Sam Reid does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Sam 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 Railway Man (2013)
Keeps the drama register of Belle but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Limehouse Golem (2016)
A deliberate change of key after The Railway Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Limehouse Golem — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Waiting for the Barbarians but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Amma Asante
Director
1 film together
Notably Belle
Jonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together
Notably The Railway Man
Lone Scherfig
Director
1 film together
Notably The Riot Club
Susanne Bier
Director
1 film together
Notably Serena
Juan Carlos Medina
Director
1 film together
Notably The Limehouse Golem
Ciro Guerra
Director
1 film together
Notably Waiting for the Barbarians
Leah Purcell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Amma Asante
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BelleJonathan Teplitzky
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Railway ManJuan Carlos Medina
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 Limehouse GolemLeah Purcell
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly JohnsonCiro Guerra
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Waiting for the BarbariansLone Scherfig
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Riot ClubSusanne Bier
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SerenaSix 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
Belle
as John Davinier
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 Railway Man
as Young Finlay
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Belle
as John Davinier
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Railway Man
as Young Finlay
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Belle
as John Davinier
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. Sam Reid 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.
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
6 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
Belle
as John Davinier
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Limehouse Golem
as John Cree
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Railway Man
as Young Finlay
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Limehouse Golem
as John Cree
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Belle
as John Davinier
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Drover's Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson
as Nate Clintoff
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Railway Man
as Young Finlay
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Limehouse Golem
as John Cree
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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