Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9107
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Allen Maldonado 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.
Allen Maldonado appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Allen. Phels High 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, 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, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Calmatic, Andrew Bachelor, Steve Franks and others, Allen Maldonado 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.
Phels High (2023) · The Equalizer (2014) as Marcus · Psych 3: This Is Gus (2021) as Alan Decker
Career snapshot
Ranked #9107 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
2007–2023
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Phels High
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Phels High
Most frequent director
Calmatic
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Calmatic
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 33m
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
6.3
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
2000s
6.6 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Ugly Truth, Live Free or Die Hard — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.6
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Ugly Truth, Live Free or Die Hard.
Most productive era
2020s
7 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.31 film | 10.01 film |
| Action | 6.71 film | 6.93 films | 6.41 film |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 7.31 film | 8.02 films |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.81 film | 5.64 films |
| Crime | — | 7.02 films | 6.72 films |
| Romance | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 3.61 film | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Goatee.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2023Phels High
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. 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.
14 of 14 films
Directed by Unknown
as Marcus
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
as Fletcher Heggs
Directed by Unknown
as Alan Decker
Directed by Steve Franks
as Litty
Directed by Director X.
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
Phels High
Phels High (2023)
Performance score9.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The role gives Allen Maldonado a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Marcus
The Equalizer (2014)
Performance score7.2
The Equalizer asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marcus is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Fletcher Heggs
Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King (2014)
Performance score7.0
Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fletcher Heggs is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Alan Decker
Psych 3: This Is Gus (2021)
Performance score6.8
Psych 3: This Is Gus asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alan Decker 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. Phels High is the clearest statement of what Allen Maldonado does — accessible, 103 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Allen 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 Equalizer (2014)
Keeps the thriller register of Phels High but asks for a colder reading of it.
Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King (2014)
Keeps the action register of The Equalizer but asks for a colder reading of it.
SuperFly (2018)
Keeps the action register of Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King but asks for a colder reading of it.
Psych 3: This Is Gus (2021)
Keeps the crime register of SuperFly but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Len Wiseman
Director
1 film together
Notably Live Free or Die Hard
Robert Luketic
Director
1 film together
Notably The Ugly Truth
Daniel Barnz
Director
1 film together
Notably Cake
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably The Equalizer
Director X.
Director
1 film together
Notably SuperFly
Henry Joost
Director
1 film together
Notably Project Power
Baron Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably Domino: Battle of the Bones
Steve Franks
Director
1 film together
Notably Psych 3: This Is Gus
Andrew Bachelor
Director
1 film together
Notably One Date
Calmatic
Director
1 film together
Notably House Party
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The EqualizerSteve Franks
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Psych 3: This Is GusDirector X.
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SuperFlyLen Wiseman
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Live Free or Die HardRobert Luketic
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Ugly TruthHenry Joost
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Project PowerDaniel Barnz
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CakeCalmatic
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
House PartyBaron Davis
Director
1 film together · 4.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Domino: Battle of the BonesAndrew Bachelor
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
One DateSix 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
Phels High
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Phels High
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Phels High
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Domino: Battle of the Bones
as Special Appearance
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Phels High
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. Allen Maldonado 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Phels High
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Phels High
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Phels High
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
American Carnage
as Big Mac
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Phels High
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Live Free or Die Hard
as Goatee
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Phels High
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
American Carnage
as Big Mac
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: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
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Reference
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