Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4717
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Tim McInnerny represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 37 years in, and Tim is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Tim McInnerny appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Tim. Blackadder: A Cunning Story is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 thriller, action, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ridley Scott, Tom Harper, Douglas Mackinnon and others, Tim McInnerny 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.
Blackadder: A Cunning Story (2023) as Self - Contributor · Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016) as Sir Eustace Carmichael · The Windermere Children (2020) as Leonard Montefiore
Career snapshot
Ranked #4717 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1989–2026
Career length
37 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
Most frequent director
Ridley Scott
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ridley Scott
Most common genre
Drama
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.6
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
1990s
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Notting Hill, 101 Dalmatians, Richard III — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.7
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. Erik the Viking.
Most productive era
2010s
9 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.61 film | 6.51 film | 6.85 films | 5.94 films |
| Action | — | — | — | 5.63 films | 6.81 film |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 6.04 films | 5.32 films |
| Comedy | 5.91 film | 6.72 films | 6.51 film | 6.63 films | — |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.23 films | — |
| Romance | — | 7.31 film | 6.51 film | 6.81 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 6.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1989Erik the Viking
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sven the Berserk.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2023Blackadder: A Cunning Story
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Past Life
The current state of the argument.
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.
20 of 20 films
as Leonard Montefiore
Directed by Unknown
as Sir Eustace Carmichael
Directed by Douglas Mackinnon
as Max
Directed by Roger Michell
as Dustin Target
Directed by Dexter Fletcher
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
Self - Contributor
Blackadder: A Cunning Story (2023)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self - Contributor gives Tim McInnerny a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leonard Montefiore
The Windermere Children (2020)
Performance score7.5
The Windermere Children asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Leonard Montefiore is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sir Eustace Carmichael
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016)
Performance score7.4
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sir Eustace Carmichael is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Max
Notting Hill (1999)
Performance score7.4
Notting Hill asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Max 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 Self - Contributor
Start here. Blackadder: A Cunning Story is the clearest statement of what Tim McInnerny does — accessible, 89 minutes, and rated 7.7 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.
Notting Hill (1999)
A deliberate change of key after Blackadder: A Cunning Story — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016)
A deliberate change of key after Notting Hill — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Eddie the Eagle (2016)
Keeps the drama register of Sherlock: The Abominable Bride but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Windermere Children (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Eddie the Eagle but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Terry Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably Erik the Viking
Richard Loncraine
Director
1 film together
Notably Richard III
Stephen Herek
Director
1 film together
Notably 101 Dalmatians
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Notting Hill
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together
Notably Casanova
Christopher Smith
Director
1 film together
Notably Black Death
Oliver Parker
Director
1 film together
Notably Johnny English Reborn
Gabe Ibáñez
Director
1 film together
Notably Automata
Bharat Nalluri
Director
1 film together
Notably Spooks: The Greater Good
Dexter Fletcher
Director
1 film together
Notably Eddie the Eagle
Douglas Mackinnon
Director
1 film together
Notably Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
Tom Harper
Director
1 film together
Notably The Aeronauts
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Gladiator II
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Douglas Mackinnon
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sherlock: The Abominable BrideRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Notting HillDexter Fletcher
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eddie the EagleRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Gladiator IITom Harper
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 AeronautsRichard Loncraine
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Richard IIILasse Hallström
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CasanovaOliver Parker
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Johnny English RebornChristopher Smith
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Black DeathStephen Herek
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
101 DalmatiansBharat Nalluri
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spooks: The Greater GoodGabe Ibáñez
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AutomataTerry Jones
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Erik the VikingSix 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
Notting Hill
as Max
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Aeronauts
as Airy
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Blackadder: A Cunning Story
as Self - Contributor
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 McInnerny 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
37 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
11 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
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
as Sir Eustace Carmichael
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
as Sir Eustace Carmichael
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The End
as Butler
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Sherlock: The Abominable Bride
as Sir Eustace Carmichael
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gladiator II
as Senator Thraex
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Gladiator II
as Senator Thraex
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Eddie the Eagle
as Dustin Target
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gladiator II
as Senator Thraex
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
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
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
Have your say
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Reference
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