Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#26424
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Susumu Terajima represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and Susumu is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Susumu Terajima appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Susumu. Ran is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 drama, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tōya Satō, Hiroyuki Tsuji, Takeshi Kitano and others, Susumu Terajima 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.
Ran (1985) as Foot soldier (uncredited) · When Marnie Was There (2014) as Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice) · Nobody Knows (2004) as Shinichi Izawa
Career snapshot
Ranked #26424 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1985–2027
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Ran
Average Nutevio score
4.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Ran
Most frequent director
Hiroyuki Tsuji
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Hiroyuki Tsuji
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
2h 19m
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
6.4
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
1980s
7.8 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Ran — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
8.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Ran.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.81 film | 7.51 film | 7.23 films | 2.33 films |
| Action | 7.81 film | — | — | 4.73 films |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 7.02 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 7.11 film | 6.91 film |
| Crime | — | — | — | 3.52 films |
| Horror | — | — | 6.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1985Ran
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Foot soldier (uncredited). 7.8 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
The current state of the argument, as Kozo Nonomura.
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.
11 of 11 films
as Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
Directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
as Shinichi Izawa
Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda
as Yoji Kakutani
Directed by Kazuya Shiraishi
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
Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
When Marnie Was There (2014)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice) gives Susumu Terajima a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Foot soldier (uncredited)
Ran (1985)
Performance score7.6
Ran asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Foot soldier (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Shinichi Izawa
Nobody Knows (2004)
Performance score7.3
Nobody Knows asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Shinichi Izawa is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Yoji Kakutani
Last of the Wolves (2021)
Performance score7.0
Last of the Wolves asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Yoji Kakutani 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 Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
Start here. When Marnie Was There is the clearest statement of what Susumu Terajima does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Susumu 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.
Ran (1985)
Keeps the drama register of When Marnie Was There but asks for a colder reading of it.
Nobody Knows (2004)
Keeps the drama register of Ran but asks for a colder reading of it.
Hit Me Anyone One More Time (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Nobody Knows but asks for a colder reading of it.
Last of the Wolves (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Hit Me Anyone One More Time — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Hiroyuki Tsuji
Director
2 films together
Notably Yakuza Powered by Nihon Touitsu
Akira Kurosawa
Director
1 film together
Notably Ran
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together
Notably Nobody Knows
Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Director
1 film together
Notably When Marnie Was There
Kazuya Shiraishi
Director
1 film together
Notably Last of the Wolves
Takeshi Kitano
Director
1 film together
Notably Kubi
Tōya Satō
Director
1 film together
Notably Kaiji: Life Revenge Game
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Hiroyuki Tsuji
Director
2 films together · 0.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Yakuza Powered by Nihon TouitsuAkira Kurosawa
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RanHiromasa Yonebayashi
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When Marnie Was ThereHirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nobody KnowsKazuya Shiraishi
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Last of the WolvesTakeshi Kitano
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
KubiTōya Satō
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kaiji: Life Revenge GameSix 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
Ran
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
When Marnie Was There
as Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ran
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ran
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
When Marnie Was There
as Kiyomasa Oiwa (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. Susumu Terajima 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
42 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
Ran
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Last of the Wolves
as Yoji Kakutani
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
When Marnie Was There
as Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Last of the Wolves
as Yoji Kakutani
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ran
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ran
as Foot soldier (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
When Marnie Was There
as Kiyomasa Oiwa (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Kaiji: Life Revenge Game
as Kozo Nonomura
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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