Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#46781
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Samuel Bottomley 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.
Samuel Bottomley appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Samuel. Tyrannosaur is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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 comedy, music, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with James McAvoy, Victor Buhler, Jeremy Dyson and others, Samuel Bottomley 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.
Tyrannosaur (2011) as Samuel · The Last Rifleman (2023) as Rory · Ghost Stories (2018) as Young Goodman
Career snapshot
Ranked #46781 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2011–2026
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Tyrannosaur
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Tyrannosaur
Most frequent director
James McAvoy
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With James McAvoy
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Get Duked!, Ghost Stories, Tyrannosaur — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Get Duked!, Ghost Stories, Tyrannosaur.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 6.82 films | 5.97 films |
| Action | 6.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.21 film | 5.53 films |
| Romance | 7.21 film | — |
| Horror | 6.32 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2011Tyrannosaur
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Samuel. 7.2 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
The current state of the argument, as Billy Boyd.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Samuel
Directed by Paddy Considine
as Young Goodman
Directed by Jeremy Dyson
as Billy Boyd
Directed by James McAvoy
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
Samuel
Tyrannosaur (2011)
Performance score7.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Samuel gives Samuel Bottomley a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rory
The Last Rifleman (2023)
Performance score6.6
The Last Rifleman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rory is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Young Goodman
Ghost Stories (2018)
Performance score6.6
Ghost Stories asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Young Goodman is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Billy Boyd
California Schemin' (2026)
Performance score6.5
California Schemin' asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Billy Boyd 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 Samuel
Start here. Tyrannosaur is the clearest statement of what Samuel Bottomley does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Samuel 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.
Ghost Stories (2018)
Keeps the drama register of Tyrannosaur but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Last Rifleman (2023)
Keeps the drama register of Ghost Stories but asks for a colder reading of it.
Anemone (2025)
Same director as The Last Rifleman, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
California Schemin' (2026)
Keeps the drama register of Anemone but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Paddy Considine
Director
1 film together
Notably Tyrannosaur
Jeremy Dyson
Director
1 film together
Notably Ghost Stories
Victor Buhler
Director
1 film together
Notably Running Naked
James McAvoy
Director
1 film together
Notably California Schemin'
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paddy Considine
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TyrannosaurJeremy Dyson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ghost StoriesJames McAvoy
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
California Schemin'Victor Buhler
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Running NakedSix 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
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Last Rifleman
as Rory
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
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. Samuel Bottomley 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
9 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
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Get Duked!
as Ian
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Sundown
as Colin Bennett
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Tyrannosaur
as Samuel
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Get Duked!
as Ian
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
California Schemin'
as Billy Boyd
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Last Rifleman
as Rory
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Michael Caine
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Tom Hanks
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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