Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9576
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Ahmed Best 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.
Ahmed Best appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ahmed. The Empire Strikes Door is the clearest case: a film rated 8.7 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, action. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for mystery, comedy, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Rodrigo García, George Lucas, Ahmed Best 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 Empire Strikes Door (2019) · Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) as Jar Jar Binks · The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III (2010) as Jar Jar Binks / Carl the Stormtrooper (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #9576 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1999–2019
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.7
The Empire Strikes Door
Average Nutevio score
7.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.7
The Empire Strikes Door
Most frequent director
George Lucas
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With George Lucas
Most common genre
Action
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.9
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
8.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Empire Strikes Door, The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
8.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
8.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace.
Most productive era
2000s
3 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.61 film | — |
| Action | 6.81 film | 7.32 films | 7.51 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 8.12 films |
| Romance | — | 6.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jar Jar Binks.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
8.7 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. 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.
6 of 6 films
Directed by Unknown
as Jar Jar Binks
Directed by George Lucas
as Jar Jar Binks / Carl the Stormtrooper (voice)
Directed by Unknown
as Jar Jar Binks / Achk Med-Beq (voice)
Directed by George Lucas
as Jar Jar Binks
Directed by George Lucas
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
The Empire Strikes Door
The Empire Strikes Door (2019)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The role gives Ahmed Best a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jar Jar Binks
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Performance score7.5
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jar Jar Binks is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jar Jar Binks / Carl the Stormtrooper (voice)
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III (2010)
Performance score7.3
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jar Jar Binks / Carl the Stormtrooper (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jar Jar Binks / Achk Med-Beq (voice)
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Performance score6.7
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jar Jar Binks / Achk Med-Beq (voice) 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
Start here. The Empire Strikes Door is the clearest statement of what Ahmed Best does — accessible, 40 minutes, and rated 8.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ahmed 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.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
A deliberate change of key after The Empire Strikes Door — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Same director as Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Same director as Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III (2010)
Keeps the action register of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
George Lucas
Director
3 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the SithRodrigo García
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mother and ChildSix 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
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Jar Jar Binks
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Mother and Child
as Julian
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Empire Strikes Door
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mother and Child
as Julian
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Empire Strikes Door
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. Ahmed Best 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
20 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
4 catalogue titles in action, 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
The Empire Strikes Door
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Empire Strikes Door
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Mother and Child
as Julian
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Empire Strikes Door
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Jar Jar Binks
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Jar Jar Binks / Carl the Stormtrooper (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III
as Jar Jar Binks / Carl the Stormtrooper (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
as Jar Jar Binks
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Tom Wilkinson
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Have your say
Community
Which Ahmed Best performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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