Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#11152
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Catherine Deneuve represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 62 years in, and Catherine is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Catherine Deneuve appears in 24 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Catherine. Belmondo: The Incorrigible is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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 mystery, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Asghar Farhadi, Emmanuelle Bercot, Gero von Boehm and others, Catherine Deneuve 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.
Belmondo: The Incorrigible (2022) · Persepolis (2007) as Marjane's Mother (voice) · Dancer in the Dark (2000) as Kathy
Career snapshot
Ranked #11152 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
24
1964–2026
Career length
62 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Most frequent director
Jacques Demy
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Jacques Demy
Most common genre
Drama
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 27m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
2000s
7.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Persepolis, Dancer in the Dark — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Belle de Jour, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Repulsion.
Most productive era
2020s
11 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 | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.24 films | — | 6.91 film | 7.72 films | 5.82 films | 4.95 films |
| Thriller | 7.11 film | — | — | — | — | 2.92 films |
| Comedy | 7.31 film | 7.01 film | — | — | — | 5.21 film |
| Crime | — | — | — | 7.61 film | — | — |
| Romance | 7.23 films | 7.01 film | 6.91 film | — | — | 0.01 film |
| Horror | 7.11 film | — | — | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1964The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Geneviève Emery.
Career peak
2007Persepolis
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2022Belmondo: The Incorrigible
8.2 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026My Own Way
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
24 of 24 films
as Marjane's Mother (voice)
Directed by Marjane Satrapi
Directed by Unknown
as Delphine Garnier
Directed by Jacques Demy
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
Marjane's Mother (voice)
Persepolis (2007)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Marjane's Mother (voice) gives Catherine Deneuve a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Belmondo: The Incorrigible (2022)
Performance score7.9
Belmondo: The Incorrigible asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Kathy
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Performance score7.9
Dancer in the Dark asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kathy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Delphine Garnier
The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)
Performance score7.9
The Young Girls of Rochefort asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Delphine Garnier 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 Marjane's Mother (voice)
Start here. Persepolis is the clearest statement of what Catherine Deneuve does — accessible, 95 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Catherine 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 Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)
Keeps the drama register of Persepolis but asks for a colder reading of it.
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
Keeps the drama register of The Young Girls of Rochefort but asks for a colder reading of it.
Peaceful (2021)
Keeps the drama register of Dancer in the Dark but asks for a colder reading of it.
Belmondo: The Incorrigible (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Peaceful — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jacques Demy
Director
3 films together
Notably The Young Girls of Rochefort
Roman Polanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Repulsion
Luis Buñuel
Director
1 film together
Notably Belle de Jour
François Truffaut
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Metro
Lars von Trier
Director
1 film together
Notably Dancer in the Dark
Marjane Satrapi
Director
1 film together
Notably Persepolis
Hirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together
Notably The Truth
Gero von Boehm
Director
1 film together
Notably Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful
Emmanuelle Bercot
Director
1 film together
Notably Peaceful
Asghar Farhadi
Director
1 film together
Notably Parallel Tales
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jacques Demy
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
The Young Girls of RochefortMarjane Satrapi
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PersepolisLars von Trier
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dancer in the DarkEmmanuelle Bercot
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
PeacefulLuis Buñuel
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Belle de JourRoman Polanski
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RepulsionFrançois Truffaut
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last MetroGero von Boehm
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Helmut Newton: The Bad and the BeautifulHirokazu Kore-eda
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The TruthAsghar Farhadi
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Parallel TalesSix 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
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Persepolis
as Marjane's Mother (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Jim Morrison: The End
as Self - Actress (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Persepolis
as Marjane's Mother (voice)
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. Catherine Deneuve 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
62 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
14 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
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Repulsion
as Carol Ledoux
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Persepolis
as Marjane's Mother (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Parallel Tales
as Céline
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Terrible Jungle
as Chantal de Bellabre
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Donkey Skin
as Princess 'Donkey Skin'
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Claire Darling
as Claire Darling
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Have your say
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Reference
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