Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8256
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
William Jackson Harper 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.
William Jackson Harper appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without William. Dark Waters is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 science fiction, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Cory Finley, Peyton Reed, Jeff Rosenberg and others, William Jackson Harper 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.
Dark Waters (2019) as James Ross · Midsommar (2019) as Josh · David (2020) as David
Career snapshot
Ranked #8256 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2010–2023
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Dark Waters
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Dark Waters
Most frequent director
Cory Finley
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Cory Finley
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 42m
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
6.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Dark Waters, Midsommar, True Story — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.7
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. Dark Waters, Midsommar, True Story.
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 | 7.03 films | 6.52 films |
| Action | — | 6.21 film |
| Thriller | 6.82 films | 4.81 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.24 films |
| Crime | 6.31 film | — |
| Romance | 6.11 film | 5.91 film |
| Horror | 7.21 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010All Good Things
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Moynihan's Assistant.
Highest rated performance
2019Dark Waters
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2019Midsommar
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2023Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
The current state of the argument, as Quaz.
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 James Ross
Directed by Todd Haynes
as Mr. Campbell
Directed by Cory Finley
as Quaz
Directed by Peyton Reed
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
Josh
Midsommar (2019)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Josh gives William Jackson Harper a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
David
David (2020)
Performance score7.5
David asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. David is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
James Ross
Dark Waters (2019)
Performance score7.3
Dark Waters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. James Ross is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mr. Campbell
Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023)
Performance score6.5
Landscape with Invisible Hand asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Campbell 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 Josh
Start here. Midsommar is the clearest statement of what William Jackson Harper does — accessible, 147 minutes, and rated 7.2 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.
Dark Waters (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Midsommar but asks for a colder reading of it.
David (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Dark Waters but asks for a colder reading of it.
Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of David but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Keeps the science fiction register of Landscape with Invisible Hand but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Andrew Jarecki
Director
1 film together
Notably All Good Things
Rupert Goold
Director
1 film together
Notably True Story
Ari Aster
Director
1 film together
Notably Midsommar
Todd Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably Dark Waters
Zach Woods
Director
1 film together
Notably David
Josh Ruben
Director
1 film together
Notably Death to 2021
Jeff Rosenberg
Director
1 film together
Notably We Broke Up
Peyton Reed
Director
1 film together
Notably Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
Cory Finley
Director
1 film together
Notably Landscape with Invisible Hand
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Todd Haynes
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dark WatersAri Aster
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MidsommarZach Woods
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DavidRupert Goold
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
True StoryPeyton Reed
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ant-Man and the Wasp: QuantumaniaAndrew Jarecki
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Good ThingsJosh Ruben
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death to 2021Cory Finley
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Landscape with Invisible HandJeff Rosenberg
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
We Broke UpSix 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
Dark Waters
as James Ross
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Dark Waters
as James Ross
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dark Waters
as James Ross
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
All Good Things
as Moynihan's Assistant
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Midsommar
as Josh
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 Jackson Harper 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
5 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
Midsommar
as Josh
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Midsommar
as Josh
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
We Broke Up
as Doug
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Man in the Woods
as Buster Heath
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dark Waters
as James Ross
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
as Quaz
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
David
as David
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
David
as David
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
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Reference
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