Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8596
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
William Smith represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 78 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 Smith appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without William. The Outsiders is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jon Stewart, Richard Donner, William Lustig and others, William Smith 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.
The Outsiders (1983) as Store Clerk · Rumble Fish (1983) as Patterson the Cop · Maverick (1994) as Riverboat Poker Player
Career snapshot
Ranked #8596 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1942–2020
Career length
78 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The Outsiders
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
The Outsiders
Most frequent director
John Milius
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With John Milius
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
7.0
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
6.9 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Maverick — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.9
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Boy with Green Hair, Meet Me in St. Louis, Going My Way.
Most productive era
1980s
5 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 | 1940s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.53 films | 6.21 film | 6.83 films | 6.91 film | 6.01 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.53 films | 6.91 film | — |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.41 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.53 films | 6.21 film | — | 6.91 film | 6.01 film |
| Crime | — | — | 6.83 films | — | — |
| Romance | 6.81 film | — | 7.01 film | — | — |
| Horror | 6.01 film | — | 6.21 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Boy (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1983The Outsiders
7.1 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
2020Irresistible
The current state of the argument, as Hofbrau Bar Fly.
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.
12 of 12 films
as Store Clerk
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
as Patterson the Cop
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
as Riverboat Poker Player
Directed by Richard Donner
as Conan's Father
Directed by John Milius
as Little Boy (uncredited)
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
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
Store Clerk
The Outsiders (1983)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Store Clerk gives William Smith a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Patterson the Cop
Rumble Fish (1983)
Performance score6.9
Rumble Fish asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Patterson the Cop is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Riverboat Poker Player
Maverick (1994)
Performance score6.8
Maverick asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Riverboat Poker Player is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Conan's Father
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
Performance score6.8
Conan the Barbarian asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Conan's Father 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 Store Clerk
Start here. The Outsiders is the clearest statement of what William Smith does — accessible, 91 minutes, and rated 7.1 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.
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Keeps the drama register of The Outsiders but asks for a colder reading of it.
Conan the Barbarian (1982)
A deliberate change of key after Meet Me in St. Louis — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Rumble Fish (1983)
A deliberate change of key after Conan the Barbarian — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Maverick (1994)
Keeps the drama register of Rumble Fish but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
2 films together
Notably The Outsiders
John Milius
Director
2 films together
Notably Conan the Barbarian
Erle C. Kenton
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ghost of Frankenstein
Leo McCarey
Director
1 film together
Notably Going My Way
Vincente Minnelli
Director
1 film together
Notably Meet Me in St. Louis
Joseph Losey
Director
1 film together
Notably The Boy with Green Hair
Robert Aldrich
Director
1 film together
Notably The Frisco Kid
William Lustig
Director
1 film together
Notably Maniac Cop
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Maverick
Jon Stewart
Director
1 film together
Notably Irresistible
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Francis Ford Coppola
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The OutsidersJohn Milius
Director
2 films together · 6.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Conan the BarbarianRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MaverickVincente Minnelli
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Meet Me in St. LouisLeo McCarey
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Going My WayJoseph Losey
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Boy with Green HairWilliam Lustig
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maniac CopRobert Aldrich
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Frisco KidJon Stewart
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IrresistibleErle C. Kenton
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ghost of FrankensteinSix 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
Conan the Barbarian
as Conan's Father
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Meet Me in St. Louis
as Little Boy (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Meet Me in St. Louis
as Little Boy (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Maverick
as Riverboat Poker Player
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Outsiders
as Store Clerk
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 Smith 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
78 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
9 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
Conan the Barbarian
as Conan's Father
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Outsiders
as Store Clerk
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Meet Me in St. Louis
as Little Boy (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Maniac Cop
as Captain Ripley
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Maverick
as Riverboat Poker Player
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Maverick
as Riverboat Poker Player
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Frisco Kid
as Matt Diggs
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Ghost of Frankenstein
as Boy (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Al Pacino
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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