Biography
Clifford Vivian Devon Curtis (born July 27, 1968) is a New Zealand-born actor. His film credits include Once Were Warriors (1994), Three Kings (1999), Training Day (2001), Whale Rider (2002), Collateral Damage (2002), Sunshine, Live Free or Die Hard (both 2007), The Dark Horse (2014), for which he won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor, Doctor Sleep (2019), Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). His television roles include NBC's Trauma, and ABC's Body of Proof...
Known For
Complete Filmography

Avatar 5
2031
as Tonowari
The fifth installment of the Avatar franchise.

Avatar 4
2029
as Tonowari
The fourth installment of the Avatar franchise.

Avatar: Fire and Ash
2025
as Tonowari
In the wake of the devastating war against the RDA and the loss of their eldest son, Jake Sully and Neytiri face a new threat on Pandora: the Ash Peop...

Last Breath
2025
as Andre Jenson (Captain)
Seasoned deep-sea divers battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean's surface.

In the Fire of War
2024
as Wi Toka
Two young teenagers are forced to take control of their own destiny amid the chaos of a pivotal battle in New Zealand’s first land wars in 1864.

Meg 2: The Trench
2023
as Mac
An exploratory dive into the deepest depths of the ocean of a daring research team spirals into chaos when a malevolent mining operation threatens the...

Inside Pandora's Box
2023
as Self
A series of featurettes on the challenges facing cast and crew as filmmakers devise new technologies to push the limits of cinema

True Spirit
2023
as Ben Bryant
When the tenacious young sailor Jessica Watson sets out to be the youngest person to sail solo, nonstop and unassisted around the world, many expect h...

Avatar: The Way of Water
2022
as Tonowari
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, learn the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follo...

The Raid
2022
as Tāwharau ‘Taffy’
Inspired by actual events, MURU is the story of a local Police Sergeant ‘Taffy’ Tāwharau, who must choose between duty to his badge or his people, whe...

The Raid
2022
Executive Producer
Inspired by actual events, MURU is the story of a local Police Sergeant ‘Taffy’ Tāwharau, who must choose between duty to his badge or his people, whe...

Murina
2022
as Javier
A teenage girl decides to replace her controlling father with his wealthy foreign friend during a weekend trip to the Adriatic Sea.

Reminiscence
2021
as Cyrus Booth
Nicolas Bannister, a rugged and solitary veteran living in a near-future Miami flooded by rising seas, is an expert in a dangerous occupation: he offe...

A Journey to Sundance
2021
as Self
'A JOURNEY TO SUNDANCE' is about the spirit, dreams and struggles of independent filmmakers from all over the world, as well as my own struggles to fi...

Doctor Sleep
2019
as Billy Freeman
Still scarred by the trauma he endured as a child at the Overlook Hotel, Dan Torrance faces the ghosts of the past when he meets Abra, a courageous te...

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
2019
as Jonah Hobbs
Ever since US Diplomatic Security Service Agent Hobbs and lawless outcast Shaw first faced off, they just have traded smack talk and body blows. But w...

Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen
2019
Executive Producer
This film is an intimate portrayal of pioneering filmmaker Merata Mita told through the eyes of her children. Using hours of archive footage, some nev...

The Meg
2018
as James 'Mac' Mackreides
A deep sea submersible pilot revisits his past fears in the Mariana Trench, and accidentally unleashes the seventy foot ancestor of the Great White Sh...

Risen
2016
as Yeshua
Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following...

Last Knights
2015
as Lt. Cortez
When an evil emperor executes their leader, his band of knights – bound by duty and honour – embarks on a journey of vengeance that will not come to a...

Once Were Warriors: Where Are They Now?
2014
as Self
It's been 20 years snce Once Were Warriors was made. Julian Arahanga aka 'Nig' takes us on a journey to meet the cast and see where they are now.

The Dark Horse
2014
as Genesis
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his st...

The Dark Horse
2014
Executive Producer
One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his st...

Great Expectations
2012
Executive Producer
Miss Havisham, a wealthy spinster who wears an old wedding dress and lives in the dilapidated Satis House, asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook to find a boy ...

A Thousand Words
2012
as Dr. Sinja
Jack McCall is a fast-talking literary agent, who can close any deal, any time, any way. He has set his sights on New Age guru Dr. Sinja for his own s...

Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata
2011
as Himself
Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata is the final work of director Merata Mita, who passed away suddenly before the film could be completed. The film...

Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata
2011
Co-Producer
Saving Grace - Te Whakarauora Tangata is the final work of director Merata Mita, who passed away suddenly before the film could be completed. The film...

Colombiana
2011
as Emilio
After witnessing her parents’ murder as a child in Bogota, Cataleya Restrepo grows up to be a stone-cold assassin. She works for her uncle as a hitman...

The Last Airbender
2010
as Fire Lord Ozai
The story follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation ...

Boy
2010
Producer
Boy, an 11-year-old child and devout Michael Jackson fan who lives on the east coast of New Zealand in 1984, gets a chance to know his absentee crimin...

Crossing Over
2009
as Hamid Baraheri
Immigrants from around the world enter Los Angeles every day, with hopeful visions of a better life, but little notion of what that life may cost. The...

Push
2009
as Hook Waters
After his father, an assassin, is brutally murdered, Nick Gant vows revenge on Division, the covert government agency that dabbles in psychic warfare ...

10,000 BC
2008
as Tic-Tic
A prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe.

Coffee and Allah
2007
Executive Producer
When a cup of coffee is a gift from Allah.

Eagle vs Shark
2007
Producer
Love blossoms for Lily over double Meaty Boy burgers at mid-day when uber-computer nerd Jarrod comes in and leaves with free extra large fries. After...

Live Free or Die Hard
2007
as Deputy Director Miguel Bowman
John McClane is back and badder than ever, and this time he calls on the services of a young hacker in his bid to stop a ring of Internet terrorists i...

Inside The Fountain: Death and Rebirth
2007
as Himself
A behind-the-scenes documentary about the making of Darren Aronofsky's ‘The Fountain’.

Fracture
2007
as Detective Flores
A husband is on trial for the attempted murder of his wife, in what is seemingly an open/shut case for the ambitious district attorney trying to put h...

Sunshine
2007
as Searle
Fifty years into the future, the sun is dying, and Earth is threatened by arctic temperatures. A team of astronauts is sent to revive the Sun — but th...

The Fountain
2006
as Captain Ariel
Spanning over one thousand years, and three parallel stories, The Fountain is a story of love, death, spirituality, and the fragility of our existence...

River Queen
2005
as Wiremu
An intimate story set during the 1860s in which a young Irish woman Sarah and her family find themselves on both sides of the turbulent wars between B...

Spooked
2004
as Mort Whitman
Spooked is a contemporary conspiracy thriller arising from the mysterious death of Kevin Jones, who thought he was just buying second-hand computers, ...

Tama Tū
2004
Producer
Six Māori Battalion soldiers camped in Italian ruins wait for night to fall. In the silence, the bros-in-arms distract themselves with jokes. A tohu (...

Fracture
2004
as Inspector Franklin
A young solo mother loves her son and his needs are formost, but she still has room in her heart for her very broken brother, even as her fundamentali...

Heinous Crime
2004
as Pizza Delivery Man
Two players, one heinous crime to be revealed. Wellington Winner of 48 Hours Furious Filmmaking 2004.

Whale Rider
2003
as Porourangi
A contemporary story of love, rejection, and triumph as a young Maori girl fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize.

Runaway Jury
2003
as Frank Herrera
After a workplace shooting in New Orleans, a trial against the gun manufacturer pits lawyer Wendell Rohr against shady jury consultant Rankin Fitch, w...

Point of Origin
2002
as Mike Camello
An arson investigator searching for the perpetrator of a string of deadly fires in 1980s California.

Collateral Damage
2002
as Claudio Perrini
Firefighter Gordon Brewer is plunged into the complex and dangerous world of international terrorism after he loses his wife and child in a bombing cr...

The Majestic
2001
as The Evil But Handsome Prince Khalid
Set in 1951, a blacklisted Hollywood writer gets into a car accident, loses his memory and settles down in a small town where he is mistaken for a lon...

Training Day
2001
as Smiley
On his first day on the job as a narcotics officer, a rookie cop works with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.

Blow
2001
as Pablo Escobar
A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family....

Jubilee
2000
as Billy Williams
Billy (Cliff Curtis) is trying to organize the biggest celebration the town of Waimatua has even seen - the 75th Jubilee of their school. In doing th...

The Insider
1999
as Sheikh Fadlallah
A research chemist comes under personal and professional attack when he decides to appear in a 60 Minutes exposé on Big Tobacco.

Bringing Out the Dead
1999
as Cy Coates
Once called "Father Frank" for his efforts to rescue lives, Frank Pierce sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every turn. He has tried ev...

Three Kings
1999
as Amir Abdullah
A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gol...

Virus
1999
as Hiko
When the crew of an American tugboat boards an abandoned Russian research vessel, the alien life form aboard regards them as a virus which must be des...

Six Days Seven Nights
1998
as Kip
In the South Pacific island of Makatea, career-driven magazine editor Robin Monroe is on a week-long vacation getaway with her boyfriend, Frank Martin...

Deep Rising
1998
as Mamooli
A group of heavily armed hijackers board a luxury ocean liner in the South Pacific Ocean to loot it, only to do battle with a series of large-sized, t...

Chicken
1996
as Zeke
On the premise that his albums will sell better if he is dead, an aging pop-singer fakes his own death. True enough, the money rolls in, but no one ca...

Hercules in the Underworld
1994
as Nessus
When villagers begin disappearing it is discovered that they had fallen through a crack in the earth which goes straight to Hades. Hercules once again...

Once Were Warriors
1994
as Bully
A drama about a Maori family living in Auckland, New Zealand. Lee Tamahori tells the story of Beth Heke’s strong will to keep her family together duri...

Rapa Nui
1994
as Short Ears
Inter-tribal rivalry leads to a competition to erect a huge statue (moai) in record time before Make can take part in the race to retrieve the egg of ...

Desperate Remedies
1993
as Fraser
In a town called Hope on the edge of Britain's empire, desperations clash: the beautiful Dorothea Brook is desperate to free her pregnant sister Rose ...

The Piano
1993
as Mana
When an arranged marriage brings Ada and her spirited daughter to the wilderness of nineteenth-century New Zealand, she finds herself locked in a batt...