Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3211
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Amaury Nolasco 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.
Amaury Nolasco appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Amaury. The Valet is the clearest case: a film rated 7.5 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 action, thriller, romance. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Don Michael Paul, Brett Simmons, Bruce Robinson and others, Amaury Nolasco 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 Valet (2022) as Benny · Lights Out (2024) as Fosco · Transformers (2007) as ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
Career snapshot
Ranked #3211 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
2003–2024
Career length
21 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
The Valet
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Valet
Most frequent director
Don Michael Paul
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Don Michael Paul
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 48m
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
2020s
7.0 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Lights Out, The Valet, South of Heaven — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.0
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.0
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. Armored, Street Kings, Max Payne.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 6.03 films | 5.91 film | 6.41 film |
| Action | 6.35 films | 5.82 films | 7.01 film |
| Thriller | 6.43 films | 5.22 films | 6.72 films |
| Comedy | — | 5.91 film | 7.51 film |
| Crime | 6.14 films | 6.21 film | 6.41 film |
| Romance | — | — | 7.51 film |
| Horror | — | 5.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
20032 Fast 2 Furious
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Orange Julius.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2022The Valet
7.5 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
2024Lights Out
The current state of the argument, as Fosco.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Fosco
Directed by Unknown
as ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
Directed by Michael Bay
as Manny
Directed by Unknown
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
Benny
The Valet (2022)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Benny gives Amaury Nolasco a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Fosco
Lights Out (2024)
Performance score7.1
Lights Out asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fosco is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
Transformers (2007)
Performance score6.9
Transformers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Sergeant Dave Flores
Jarhead: Law of Return (2019)
Performance score6.7
Jarhead: Law of Return asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sergeant Dave Flores 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 Benny
Start here. The Valet is the clearest statement of what Amaury Nolasco does — accessible, 123 minutes, and rated 7.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Amaury 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.
Transformers (2007)
A deliberate change of key after The Valet — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Jarhead: Law of Return (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Transformers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
South of Heaven (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Jarhead: Law of Return — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Lights Out (2024)
Same director as South of Heaven, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Singleton
Director
1 film together
Notably 2 Fast 2 Furious
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Transformers
David Ayer
Director
1 film together
Notably Street Kings
Nimród Antal
Director
1 film together
Notably Armored
Bruce Robinson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Rum Diary
Brett Simmons
Director
1 film together
Notably Animal
Don Michael Paul
Director
1 film together
Notably Jarhead: Law of Return
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TransformersDavid Ayer
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Street KingsJohn Singleton
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
2 Fast 2 FuriousDon Michael Paul
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jarhead: Law of ReturnBruce Robinson
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Rum DiaryNimród Antal
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ArmoredBrett Simmons
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AnimalSix 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 Valet
as Benny
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 Valet
as Benny
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 Valet
as Benny
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transformers
as ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Valet
as Benny
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. Amaury Nolasco 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
21 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
8 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 Valet
as Benny
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Lights Out
as Fosco
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Valet
as Benny
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Armored
as Palmer
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Transformers
as ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers
as ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Street Kings
as Detective Cosmo Santos
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Transformers
as ACWO Jorge 'Fig' Figueroa
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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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
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Reference
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