Timothy Hutton Rankings And Opinions

Timothy Hutton occupies a strange and fascinating space in Hollywood history. He’s the kid who won an Oscar before he could legally buy a drink, the brooding lead of a beloved cable heist show,
and an actor whose career has been shadowed by serious off-screen controversy. That mix of acclaim, cult fandom, and debate makes “Timothy Hutton rankings and opinions” more than just another
“best movies” list – it’s a snapshot of how audiences and critics wrestle with talent, legacy, and personal conduct over time.

In this deep dive, we’ll rank some of Hutton’s most talked-about performances, unpack how critics and fans rate his work, and explore how recent legal headlines have shaped public opinion.
We’ll also look at what it’s actually like to revisit his filmography today in the age of streaming and social media.

Who Is Timothy Hutton, Anyway?

Timothy Hutton was born August 16, 1960, in Malibu, California, into a showbusiness family – his father was actor Jim Hutton.
After a run of TV movies in the late 1970s, he broke through with Robert Redford’s drama Ordinary People (1980), playing Conrad Jarrett, a teenager struggling with grief and guilt.
That performance earned him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and made him the youngest winner ever in that category, at just about 20 years old.

Hutton didn’t disappear after that early high. Across the 1980s and 1990s he appeared in films like Taps, The Falcon and the Snowman, The Dark Half, Beautiful Girls,
and The General’s Daughter, plus smaller but memorable turns in movies such as Kinsey and All the Money in the World.
On television, he reinvented himself for a new generation as Nate Ford, the morally complicated mastermind at the center of the caper series Leverage (2008–2012).

That combination of early prestige, solid mid-career work, and late-career TV stardom is the backdrop for most rankings and opinions you’ll find online. But which performances actually rise to the top?
Let’s break it down.

Ranking Timothy Hutton’s Most Influential Performances

Different sites rank Hutton’s work in slightly different orders, but there’s a striking amount of overlap. Fan-driven lists on Ranker currently put Ordinary People, Made in Heaven,
and Taps at the top, while movie-centric sites like Flickchart and Rotten Tomatoes consistently highlight titles like Beautiful Girls, The Ghost Writer, and
The Falcon and the Snowman.

1. Conrad in Ordinary People (1980)

No surprise here: almost every ranking agrees that Ordinary People is peak Timothy Hutton. He plays Conrad Jarrett, a suburban teen drowning in survivor’s guilt after his brother’s death.
Critics praised the performance for its raw vulnerability and emotional precision, and it’s the role that earned him his Oscar.

What keeps this performance at the top of lists even decades later is how contemporary it feels. Hutton’s Conrad doesn’t look like a “big award performance” full of showy monologues;
he’s quiet, hesitant, and physically uncomfortable in his own skin. In an era where audiences are more open about mental health and trauma, the way he portrays anxiety, numbness, and awkward attempts
at connection still hits hard.

2. Nate Ford in Leverage (2008–2012)

Purists might argue that TV work shouldn’t outrank films, but if you listen to fans, Nate Ford – the ex-insurance investigator turned Robin Hood-style mastermind – is right up there with Conrad Jarrett.
Leverage became a cult favorite on cable and then streaming, and Hutton’s conflicted, often bitter team leader is central to its appeal.

Online fandoms frequently describe Hutton as “the glue” that holds the ensemble together, giving the show emotional stakes beneath the heists and cons.
He plays Nate as someone whose sense of justice is constantly at war with his personal demons, and that tension gives the slick procedural format a surprising amount of dramatic weight.

3. David in Made in Heaven (1987)

Made in Heaven doesn’t dominate mainstream conversation today, but it ranks highly on several fan lists and remains a sentimental favorite.
Hutton plays David, a soul who meets his true love in the afterlife and then has to find her again when they’re both reborn on Earth.

The film’s romantic, slightly off-kilter tone lets Hutton lean into a gentler, more idealistic presence. It’s often cited by fans who prefer his softer performances over the anguished intensity of
Ordinary People or the cynicism of Nate Ford.

4. Cadet Brian Moreland in Taps (1981)

In Taps, Hutton stars alongside a young Tom Cruise and Sean Penn as a military school cadet who takes a stand when the academy is threatened with closure. The film shows up near the top of
several “best Timothy Hutton movies” lists, partly for its cast and partly for its morally ambiguous story about loyalty, authority, and escalation.

Hutton’s performance captures the dangerous mix of idealism and stubbornness that turns a protest into a standoff. For viewers who enjoy character studies about leadership gone wrong, this role is
a key part of his legacy.

5. Christopher Boyce in The Falcon and the Snowman (1985)

Based on a true story, The Falcon and the Snowman follows two young men who sell U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union. Hutton’s Christopher Boyce is a disillusioned defense contractor’s son who
slips gradually from frustration into treason.

Critics and fans highlight this performance as one of Hutton’s most nuanced, because he plays Boyce as neither a simple traitor nor a pure whistleblower. Instead, he seems like a guy who keeps
telling himself he’s just going one small step further, until the steps run out.

6. Sidney Kroll in The Ghost Writer (2010)

In Roman Polanski’s thriller The Ghost Writer, Hutton plays Sidney Kroll opposite Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. The film, which blends political intrigue with Hitchcock-style suspense,
is one of the best-reviewed late-career projects Hutton has been associated with, often appearing on lists of his top films.

While it’s more of an ensemble thriller than a star vehicle, Hutton’s presence adds depth to the film’s chilly, paranoid tone. For rankings that skew toward critical reception and overall movie
quality, this title usually lands somewhere in the top 10.

7. Paul in Beautiful Girls (1996)

Beautiful Girls is the kind of mid-90s dramedy that quietly builds a loyal following. Hutton plays Willie Conway, a struggling pianist who returns to his hometown and confronts old friends,
old flames, and his own stalled adulthood. The film often appears midway up rankings of Hutton’s work, buoyed by strong ensemble chemistry and a sharp script.

For viewers who grew up with this movie on cable, Willie is one of Hutton’s most relatable charactersless tragic than Conrad, less morally compromised than Nate, but just as emotionally stuck.

8. Supporting Turns: Kinsey, Sunshine State, and More

Beyond the headlining roles, many rankings and critical retrospectives highlight Hutton’s supporting turns in films like Kinsey, Sunshine State, The General’s Daughter,
and All the Money in the World.

In these projects, he’s less the emotional center and more the solid character actor who can sharpen a scene without pulling it away from the leads. For critics, that versatility – bouncing between
lead, ensemble, and supporting work – is part of why he remains interesting to discuss even when he’s not dominating the box office.

How Critics and Fans Rank Timothy Hutton Overall

Critical Reputation

Major review aggregators and critics’ archives paint a consistent picture. Rotten Tomatoes’ overview of his career emphasizes that he started strong with Ordinary People, then built a
resume of intelligent, sometimes darker roles. Roger Ebert and other critics frequently praised his ability to suggest inner turmoil without big, showy gestures in films such as
The Ghost Writer, Lymelife, and Last Holiday.

On paper, his filmography doesn’t look like a typical “Oscar winner” trajectory – there’s no long string of huge prestige projects. Instead, he jumps between studio thrillers, indie dramas, and
television work. That patchwork is part of what makes ranking him tricky: do you weigh his early awards or his long-term consistency more heavily?

Fan Rankings and Online Lists

Fan-generated lists on sites like Ranker and Flickchart tend to reward emotional connection and rewatch value. There, Ordinary People almost always lands at #1, but movies like
Made in Heaven, Taps, and The Ghost Writer frequently score higher than their box-office numbers alone would suggest.

Dedicated Leverage fans also give Hutton a kind of informal ranking bump, treating Nate Ford as one of the defining TV antiheroes of late-2000s cable. In fan forums and social media threads,
you’ll see variations of the same statement: “He made the show work.”

The Shadow of Controversy: How Allegations Affect Opinions

Any honest look at Timothy Hutton’s rankings and public image has to acknowledge the sexual assault allegations that surfaced in 2020. A woman alleged that Hutton raped her in 1983 when she was a
teenager in Canada, claims he strongly denied and described as an extortion attempt.
The story was widely covered in outlets like Variety, the Los Angeles Times, and others.

In 2021, Canadian authorities announced that they would not press criminal charges after investigating the complaint; Hutton’s legal team stated that he had been “officially cleared” by law
enforcement.
However, the allegations still had professional consequences. He was dropped from the reboot series Leverage: Redemption, and he later sued the producers over breach of contract, arguing that
they wrongly removed him from the show.

As with many public figures facing serious allegations, fan opinions split. Some viewers feel uncomfortable revisiting his work; others separate the allegations from his performances, especially in
older films. Rankings that factor in “overall legacy” sometimes note the controversy explicitly, while lists focused solely on acting quality often ignore it. The result is a more complicated,
polarized conversation about where he belongs in the larger landscape of American actors.

Is Timothy Hutton Underrated, Overrated, or Just Right?

So where does that leave him on the imaginary giant list of screen actors?

From a purely performance-based perspective, there’s a strong case that Hutton is underrated. Winning an Oscar so young set expectations sky-high, and almost any career would look uneven by
comparison. Yet when you scan his filmography and ratings, you find a steady pattern: he rarely feels miscast, frequently elevates supporting roles, and anchors at least one all-time classic film
plus a cult-favorite TV series.

On the other hand, his career choices didn’t always keep him in the center of the Hollywood spotlight. He often favored character-driven, medium-scale projects instead of headline-grabbing franchises
or awards-bait vehicles. That can leave casual audiences under the impression that he “disappeared” after Ordinary People, even though his resume says otherwise.

When you fold in off-screen controversy, public rankings and opinions become less about pure craft and more about personal ethics, comfort levels, and how – or whether – to separate art from
artist. For some viewers, those allegations permanently lower his standing, regardless of the legal outcome. For others, the official decision not to charge him, combined with decades of work, keeps
him in the “flawed but talented” category rather than banished from their screens.

What It Feels Like to Revisit Timothy Hutton’s Work Today

If you sit down today to binge Hutton’s work, your experience will probably depend on where you start.

Beginning with Ordinary People feels like stepping into a time capsule – the late-1970s suburban homes, the golf sweaters, the therapy sessions. Yet the emotional beats feel startlingly
modern. Conrad’s panic in crowded rooms, his reluctance to talk, his flashes of anger at well-meaning adults: those details look like they were designed for contemporary conversations about teen
mental health. The movie doesn’t offer easy catharsis; it offers the messy, halting kind, and Hutton’s performance is the backbone of that approach.

Jump from there to Leverage and you get a different flavor of Hutton. Nate Ford carries the show like a man carrying a backpack full of bricks – he’s smart, funny, and deeply burdened.
Watching the series now, those burdens read as eerily prescient of today’s “found family” and anti-hero trends in TV: a broken central character who slowly learns to accept help from his chaotic,
highly skilled crew. His dry line readings and world-weary smirk give the show its personality even when the cons themselves get a little outlandish.

If you dig into the mid-career films, you get a sampler platter of what Hutton does well in smaller doses. In Beautiful Girls, he’s the guy who never quite figured out who he wanted to be,
trapped between youthful dreams and adult responsibilities. In The Falcon and the Snowman, he’s the idealist whose anger at the system pushes him into dangerous territory.
In The Ghost Writer, he plays a supporting role in a chilly political thriller, reminding you how good he can be as part of a larger ensemble.

Of course, it’s impossible to completely separate the viewing experience from what you know about his personal life. Many people find that once they’ve read detailed reporting on the allegations,
the emotional tone of certain scenes changes. A moment that once felt like vulnerable intensity can start to feel heavier or uncomfortable. Others compartmentalize: they treat the films as documents
of collaboration between hundreds of people, not just a single actor, and continue to watch them while acknowledging the complexity.

What’s clear is that Hutton’s work doesn’t vanish easily from memory. Conrad’s haunted stare, Nate Ford’s exhausted honesty, the idealism of his early roles and the hard-won cynicism of his later
ones – they linger. Whether that earns him a high spot on your personal rankings or pushes him down the list depends on which parts of the story you weigh more heavily: the craft, the career, or
the controversy.

Final Thoughts: Building Your Own Timothy Hutton Ranking

In the end, “Timothy Hutton rankings and opinions” are less about arriving at a single definitive list and more about mapping a complicated career. On paper, you can say:

• Ordinary People is the undisputed #1 performance.
• Leverage gives him a second life as a TV icon.
• Films like Taps, The Falcon and the Snowman, Beautiful Girls, and The Ghost Writer fill out the top tier.
• Supporting roles and TV work reveal a flexible, often understated actor who rarely phones it in.

But your personal ranking will always be shaped by how you balance admiration for the performances with your response to the off-screen stories. For some, Hutton remains a brilliantly talented
actor whose early promise matured into a solid, if unconventional, career. For others, the allegations and professional fallout are too significant to ignore, permanently coloring how they see his
work.

Either way, Hutton’s filmography has carved out a durable niche in American screen history. His best roles invite uncomfortable questions, emotional honesty, and long conversations – and that, more
than any trophy, is what keeps people debating where he belongs on the list.