Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15118
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Tim Key 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.
Tim Key appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tim. One Day is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 Griffiths, Bong Joon Ho, Thea Sharrock and others, Tim Key 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.
One Day (2011) as Customer · The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) as Charles Heath · Wicked Little Letters (2024) as Father Ambrose
Career snapshot
Ranked #15118 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2011–2025
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
One Day
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
One Day
Most frequent director
James Griffiths
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With James Griffiths
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 34m
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
2020s
6.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Ballad of Wallis Island, Mickey 17, Wicked Little Letters — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.6
Across 6 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
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. The Double, I Give It a Year, One Day.
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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.02 films | 7.12 films |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | — |
| Comedy | 5.51 film | 6.66 films |
| Crime | — | 6.31 film |
| Romance | 6.52 films | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
2011One Day
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Customer. 7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2025The Ballad of Wallis Island
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2025Mickey 17
The current state of the argument, as Pigeon Man.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Charles Heath
Directed by James Griffiths
as Customer
Directed by Lone Scherfig
as Danny Mallard (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Father Ambrose
Directed by Thea Sharrock
as Pigeon Man
Directed by Bong Joon Ho
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
Charles Heath
The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Charles Heath gives Tim Key a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Customer
One Day (2011)
Performance score7.2
One Day asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Customer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Danny Mallard (voice)
Talk Radio (2021)
Performance score7.0
Talk Radio asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Danny Mallard (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Father Ambrose
Wicked Little Letters (2024)
Performance score6.8
Wicked Little Letters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Father Ambrose 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 Charles Heath
Start here. The Ballad of Wallis Island is the clearest statement of what Tim Key does — accessible, 100 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Tim 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.
One Day (2011)
Keeps the drama register of The Ballad of Wallis Island but asks for a colder reading of it.
Talk Radio (2021)
A deliberate change of key after One Day — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Wicked Little Letters (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Talk Radio but asks for a colder reading of it.
Mickey 17 (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of Wicked Little Letters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Lone Scherfig
Director
1 film together
Notably One Day
Dan Mazer
Director
1 film together
Notably I Give It a Year
Richard Ayoade
Director
1 film together
Notably The Double
Tom George
Director
1 film together
Notably See How They Run
Thea Sharrock
Director
1 film together
Notably Wicked Little Letters
Bong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together
Notably Mickey 17
James Griffiths
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ballad of Wallis Island
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Lone Scherfig
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One DayJames Griffiths
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ballad of Wallis IslandThea Sharrock
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wicked Little LettersBong Joon Ho
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mickey 17Richard Ayoade
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DoubleTom George
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
See How They RunDan Mazer
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Give It a YearSix 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
One Day
as Customer
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
One Day
as Customer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
One Day
as Customer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
One Day
as Customer
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Ballad of Wallis Island
as Charles Heath
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. Tim Key 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
7 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
Wicked Little Letters
as Father Ambrose
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Wicked Little Letters
as Father Ambrose
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
One Day
as Customer
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
See How They Run
as Commissioner Harrold Scott
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
One Day
as Customer
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Mickey 17
as Pigeon Man
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Ballad of Wallis Island
as Charles Heath
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Ballad of Wallis Island
as Charles Heath
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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