Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2793
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Alan Alda represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Alan is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Alan Alda appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Alan. The Making of "Marriage Story" is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for tv movie, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Hollander, Noah Baumbach, Steven Spielberg and others, Alan Alda 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 Making of "Marriage Story" (2020) as Self · Marriage Story (2019) as Bert Spitz · Bridge of Spies (2015) as Thomas Watters Jr.
Career snapshot
Ranked #2793 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1996–2022
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
The Making of "Marriage Story"
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
The Making of "Marriage Story"
Most frequent director
David Hollander
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David Hollander
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 54m
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
6.8
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
2020s
8.4 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Ray Donovan: The Movie, The Making of "Marriage Story" — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
8.4
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
8.4
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. The Object of My Affection, Mad City, Flirting with Disaster.
Most productive era
2010s
6 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.02 films | 6.93 films | 7.52 films | 6.81 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.11 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 6.91 film | 7.21 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.32 films | 6.51 film | 5.82 films | — |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.81 film |
| Romance | 6.22 films | 6.51 film | 5.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Richard Schlichting.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The Making of "Marriage Story"
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Dr. Arthur Amiot.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Bert Spitz
Directed by Noah Baumbach
as Thomas Watters Jr.
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Senator Ralph Owen Brewster
Directed by Martin Scorsese
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
Self
The Making of "Marriage Story" (2020)
Performance score9.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Alan Alda a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bert Spitz
Marriage Story (2019)
Performance score7.7
Marriage Story asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bert Spitz is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Thomas Watters Jr.
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Performance score7.3
Bridge of Spies asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Thomas Watters Jr. is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Senator Ralph Owen Brewster
The Aviator (2004)
Performance score7.3
The Aviator asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Senator Ralph Owen Brewster 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 Self
Start here. The Making of "Marriage Story" is the clearest statement of what Alan Alda does — accessible, 97 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Alan 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.
The Aviator (2004)
A deliberate change of key after The Making of "Marriage Story" — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Bridge of Spies (2015)
Keeps the drama register of The Aviator but asks for a colder reading of it.
Marriage Story (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Bridge of Spies but asks for a colder reading of it.
Alan Pakula: Going for Truth (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Marriage Story — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Everyone Says I Love You
David O. Russell
Director
1 film together
Notably Flirting with Disaster
Costa-Gavras
Director
1 film together
Notably Mad City
Nicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together
Notably The Object of My Affection
Nancy Meyers
Director
1 film together
Notably What Women Want
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Aviator
Marc Abraham
Director
1 film together
Notably Flash of Genius
Rod Lurie
Director
1 film together
Notably Nothing but the Truth
Brett Ratner
Director
1 film together
Notably Tower Heist
David Wain
Director
1 film together
Notably Wanderlust
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Bridge of Spies
Noah Baumbach
Director
1 film together
Notably Marriage Story
David Hollander
Director
1 film together
Notably Ray Donovan: The Movie
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Noah Baumbach
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marriage StorySteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bridge of SpiesMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AviatorRod Lurie
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nothing but the TruthDavid Hollander
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ray Donovan: The MovieMarc Abraham
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Flash of GeniusNancy Meyers
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What Women WantWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Everyone Says I Love YouCosta-Gavras
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mad CityDavid O. Russell
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Flirting with DisasterBrett Ratner
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tower HeistNicholas Hytner
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Object of My AffectionDavid Wain
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WanderlustSix 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
The Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Object of My Affection
as Sidney Miller
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 Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ray Donovan: The Movie
as Dr. Arthur Amiot
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
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. Alan Alda 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
26 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
8 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
The Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Object of My Affection
as Sidney Miller
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Making of "Marriage Story"
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tower Heist
as Arthur Shaw
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Object of My Affection
as Sidney Miller
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mad City
as Kevin Hollander
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Leonardo DiCaprio
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Mark Rolston
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Jack Nicholson
Works with the same directors — Martin Scorsese
Have your say
Community
Which Alan Alda 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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