Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#974
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Sam Richardson works on versatility 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 Richardson appears in 27 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sam. Hoppers is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 action, comedy, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Chong, Sam Hargrave, John Rice and others, Sam Richardson 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.
Hoppers (2026) as Conner (voice) · The Tomorrow War (2021) as Charlie · Promising Young Woman (2020) as Paul
Career snapshot
Ranked #974 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
27
2013–2026
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Hoppers
Average Nutevio score
5.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Hoppers
Most frequent director
Paul Feig
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Paul Feig
Most common genre
Comedy
23 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.2 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Good Boys, Game Over, Man!, Ralph Breaks the Internet — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.2
Across 11 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.2
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. Good Boys, Game Over, Man!, Ralph Breaks the Internet.
Most productive era
2020s
16 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 | — | 6.53 films |
| Action | 6.24 films | 3.04 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.41 film |
| Comedy | 6.211 films | 4.812 films |
| Crime | 6.43 films | 7.41 film |
| Romance | — | 5.83 films |
| Horror | — | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as TSA Agent.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2026Hoppers
8.1 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
The current state of the argument, as (voice).
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.
27 of 27 films
as Conner (voice)
Directed by Daniel Chong
as Charlie
Directed by Unknown
as Uncle Brill (voice)
Directed by Kirk DeMicco
as Paul
Directed by Emerald Fennell
as Lee the Office Nerd (voice)
Directed by Phil Johnston
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
Conner (voice)
Hoppers (2026)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Conner (voice) gives Sam Richardson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Charlie
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Performance score7.6
The Tomorrow War asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Charlie is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Uncle Brill (voice)
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)
Performance score7.3
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Uncle Brill (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Paul
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Performance score7.2
Promising Young Woman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Paul 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 Conner (voice)
Start here. Hoppers is the clearest statement of what Sam Richardson does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 8.1 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.
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Keeps the science fiction register of Hoppers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Ralph Breaks the Internet — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Promising Young Woman — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (2023)
A deliberate change of key after The Tomorrow War — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paul Feig
Director
2 films together
Notably Spy
Jake Szymanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
Josh Gordon
Director
1 film together
Notably Office Christmas Party
Nicholas Stoller
Director
1 film together
Notably Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
Phil Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably Ralph Breaks the Internet
Kyle Newacheck
Director
1 film together
Notably Game Over, Man!
Gene Stupnitsky
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Boys
Ben Falcone
Director
1 film together
Notably Superintelligence
Emerald Fennell
Director
1 film together
Notably Promising Young Woman
Josh Ruben
Director
1 film together
Notably Werewolves Within
Alex Hardcastle
Director
1 film together
Notably Senior Year
Anne Fletcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Hocus Pocus 2
Dave Franco
Director
1 film together
Notably Somebody I Used to Know
Kirk DeMicco
Director
1 film together
Notably Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Kevin Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably The 4:30 Movie
Olatunde Osunsanmi
Director
1 film together
Notably Star Trek: Section 31
John Rice
Director
1 film together
Notably The Angry Birds Movie 3
Sam Hargrave
Director
1 film together
Notably Matchbox: The Movie
Daniel Chong
Director
1 film together
Notably Hoppers
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Feig
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
SpyDaniel Chong
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HoppersEmerald Fennell
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Promising Young WomanKirk DeMicco
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ruby Gillman, Teenage KrakenPhil Johnston
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ralph Breaks the InternetAnne Fletcher
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Hocus Pocus 2Gene Stupnitsky
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good BoysJake Szymanski
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mike and Dave Need Wedding DatesJosh Ruben
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Werewolves WithinAlex Hardcastle
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Senior YearBen Falcone
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SuperintelligenceKevin Smith
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The 4:30 MovieDave Franco
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Somebody I Used to KnowNicholas Stoller
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Neighbors 2: Sorority RisingJosh Gordon
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Office Christmas PartyKyle Newacheck
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Game Over, Man!Olatunde Osunsanmi
Director
1 film together · 4.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Star Trek: Section 31Sam Hargrave
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Matchbox: The MovieJohn Rice
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Angry Birds Movie 3Six 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
Hoppers
as Conner (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
Somebody I Used to Know
as Dar
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Hoppers
as Conner (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as Lee the Office Nerd (voice)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Hoppers
as Conner (voice)
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 Richardson 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
23 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Hoppers
as Conner (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Promising Young Woman
as Paul
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Somebody I Used to Know
as Dar
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Promising Young Woman
as Paul
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Tomorrow War
as Charlie
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Tomorrow War
as Charlie
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Somebody I Used to Know
as Dar
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
as Uncle Brill (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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