Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11049
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Sam Riley 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 Riley appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Sam. John Cranko is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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, science fiction, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ben Wheatley, Thomas Napper, Jaume Balagueró and others, Sam Riley 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.
John Cranko (2024) as John Cranko · Control (2007) as Ian Curtis · Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) as Diaval
Career snapshot
Ranked #11049 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
2007–2026
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
John Cranko
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
John Cranko
Most frequent director
Ben Wheatley
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Ben Wheatley
Most common genre
Drama
13 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
6.9
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. Franklyn, Control — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.8
Across 2 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
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Franklyn, Control.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 6.34 films | 6.77 films |
| Action | — | 6.72 films | 5.92 films |
| Thriller | 6.01 film | 6.02 films | 6.44 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.32 films | — |
| Crime | — | 6.31 film | 6.11 film |
| Romance | — | 6.83 films | 6.42 films |
| Horror | — | 6.21 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2007Control
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ian Curtis.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2024John Cranko
8.2 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
2026Bulk
The current state of the argument, as Corey Harlan.
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.
18 of 18 films
as John Cranko
Directed by Unknown
as Diaval
Directed by Joachim Rønning
as Benoit Labarie
Directed by Saul Dibb
as Louis Bohne
Directed by Thomas Napper
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
John Cranko
John Cranko (2024)
Performance score8.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. John Cranko gives Sam Riley a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ian Curtis
Control (2007)
Performance score8.1
Control asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ian Curtis is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Diaval
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Performance score7.4
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Diaval is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Benoit Labarie
Suite Française (2015)
Performance score7.3
Suite Française asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Benoit Labarie 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 Cranko
Start here. John Cranko is the clearest statement of what Sam Riley does — accessible, 128 minutes, and rated 8.2 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.
Control (2007)
Same director as John Cranko, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Suite Française (2015)
Keeps the drama register of Control but asks for a colder reading of it.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Suite Française — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Widow Clicquot (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Maleficent: Mistress of Evil — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ben Wheatley
Director
3 films together
Notably Rebecca
Walter Salles
Director
1 film together
Notably On the Road
Robert Stromberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent
Saul Dibb
Director
1 film together
Notably Suite Française
Burr Steers
Director
1 film together
Notably Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Joachim Rønning
Director
1 film together
Notably Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
Marjane Satrapi
Director
1 film together
Notably Radioactive
Jaume Balagueró
Director
1 film together
Notably The Vault
Thomas Napper
Director
1 film together
Notably Widow Clicquot
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ben Wheatley
Director
3 films together · 5.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
RebeccaJoachim Rønning
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maleficent: Mistress of EvilSaul Dibb
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Suite FrançaiseRobert Stromberg
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaleficentJaume Balagueró
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 VaultThomas Napper
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Widow ClicquotMarjane Satrapi
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RadioactiveBurr Steers
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pride and Prejudice and ZombiesWalter Salles
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
On the RoadSix 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
John Cranko
as John Cranko
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
John Cranko
as John Cranko
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
John Cranko
as John Cranko
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Maleficent
as Diaval
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
John Cranko
as John Cranko
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 Riley 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
13 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
John Cranko
as John Cranko
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Vault
as James
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Radioactive
as Pierre Curie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Rebecca
as Jack Favell
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
John Cranko
as John Cranko
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Vault
as James
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Maleficent
as Diaval
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Sometimes Always Never
as Peter
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Sam Riley performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
