Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#6079
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
William Forsythe represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 42 years in, and William is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
William Forsythe appears in 25 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without William. Once Upon a Time in America is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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 comedy, action, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Gabriel Sabloff, Jon Avnet, Joe Roth and others, William Forsythe 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.
Once Upon a Time in America (1984) as Cockeye · The Rock (1996) as Special Agent Ernest Paxton · Raising Arizona (1987) as Evelle
Career snapshot
Ranked #6079 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
25
1984–2026
Career length
42 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Once Upon a Time in America
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.4
Once Upon a Time in America
Most frequent director
Gabriel Sabloff
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Gabriel Sabloff
Most common genre
Crime
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.5
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
7.2 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Raising Arizona, Extreme Prejudice, Once Upon a Time in America — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.2
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.2
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. Raising Arizona, Extreme Prejudice, Once Upon a Time in America.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.32 films | 6.32 films | 5.81 film | 5.53 films | 3.65 films |
| Action | 6.31 film | 6.33 films | — | 5.62 films | 2.92 films |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 6.33 films | 5.52 films | 5.02 films | 5.43 films |
| Comedy | 7.01 film | 6.12 films | — | — | 0.02 films |
| Crime | 7.23 films | 6.14 films | 5.52 films | 5.43 films | 2.92 films |
| Romance | — | 6.01 film | — | 5.01 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | — | 4.31 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1984Once Upon a Time in America
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cockeye. 8.4 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
2026A Crime Story
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.
25 of 25 films
as Cockeye
Directed by Sergio Leone
as Special Agent Ernest Paxton
Directed by Michael Bay
as Evelle
Directed by Joel Coen
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
Cockeye
Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Cockeye gives William Forsythe a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Special Agent Ernest Paxton
The Rock (1996)
Performance score7.3
The Rock asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Special Agent Ernest Paxton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Senator Robert Benson
God's Not Dead: We The People (2021)
Performance score7.1
God's Not Dead: We The People asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Senator Robert Benson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Evelle
Raising Arizona (1987)
Performance score7.1
Raising Arizona asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Evelle 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 Cockeye
Start here. Once Upon a Time in America is the clearest statement of what William Forsythe does — accessible, 229 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet William 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.
Raising Arizona (1987)
Keeps the crime register of Once Upon a Time in America but asks for a colder reading of it.
Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995)
Keeps the crime register of Raising Arizona but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Rock (1996)
A deliberate change of key after Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
God's Not Dead: We The People (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Rock — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Sergio Leone
Director
1 film together
Notably Once Upon a Time in America
Walter Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Extreme Prejudice
Joel Coen
Director
1 film together
Notably Raising Arizona
Warren Beatty
Director
1 film together
Notably Dick Tracy
John Flynn
Director
1 film together
Notably Out for Justice
Gary Fleder
Director
1 film together
Notably Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably The Rock
Mike Mitchell
Director
1 film together
Notably Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo
Michael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together
Notably City by the Sea
Joe Roth
Director
1 film together
Notably Freedomland
Jon Avnet
Director
1 film together
Notably 88 Minutes
Gabriel Sabloff
Director
1 film together
Notably Straight Shot
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Sergio Leone
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once Upon a Time in AmericaMichael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The RockJoel Coen
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Raising ArizonaGary Fleder
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Things to Do in Denver When You're DeadWalter Hill
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Extreme PrejudiceJohn Flynn
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Out for JusticeWarren Beatty
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dick TracyMike Mitchell
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deuce Bigalow: Male GigoloJon Avnet
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
88 MinutesMichael Caton-Jones
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City by the SeaJoe Roth
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FreedomlandGabriel Sabloff
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Straight ShotSix 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
The Rock
as Special Agent Ernest Paxton
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Roe v. Wade
as Justice Potter Stewart
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Once Upon a Time in America
as Cockeye
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Once Upon a Time in America
as Cockeye
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Once Upon a Time in America
as Cockeye
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. William Forsythe 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.
Crime Legend
Awarded
14 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Once Upon a Time in America
as Cockeye
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Once Upon a Time in America
as Cockeye
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Little Mermaid
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Freedomland
as Boyle
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Rock
as Special Agent Ernest Paxton
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Rock
as Special Agent Ernest Paxton
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Little Mermaid
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Rock
as Special Agent Ernest Paxton
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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