Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#62371
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Claude Rich represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 62 years in, and Claude is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Claude Rich appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Claude. Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible 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 documentary, comedy, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alain Chabat, François Truffaut, René Clément and others, Claude Rich 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.
Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible (2020) as Self (archive footage) · Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002) as Panoramix · Crooks in Clover (1963) as Antoine Delafoy
Career snapshot
Ranked #62371 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1958–2020
Career length
62 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.5
Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Crooks in Clover
Most frequent director
Alain Chabat
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Alain Chabat
Most common genre
Comedy
3 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
7.2
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
7.2
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
7.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.5
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Neither Seen Nor Recognized.
Most productive era
1960s
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 | 1950s | 1960s | 2000s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.82 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.61 film | 7.31 film | 7.41 film | — |
| Crime | — | 7.02 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1958Neither Seen Nor Recognized
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Amédée Fléchard.
Career peak
2002Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance · Most recent film
2020Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible
7.5 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. The current state of the argument, as Self (archive footage).
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
as Panoramix
Directed by Alain Chabat
as Antoine Delafoy
Directed by Georges Lautner
as Bliss
Directed by François Truffaut
as General Leclerc
Directed by René Clément
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
Panoramix
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Panoramix gives Claude Rich a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Antoine Delafoy
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Performance score7.4
Crooks in Clover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Antoine Delafoy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self (archive footage)
Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible (2020)
Performance score7.3
Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self (archive footage) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bliss
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
Performance score7.0
The Bride Wore Black asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bliss 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 Panoramix
Start here. Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra is the clearest statement of what Claude Rich does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Claude 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.
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Keeps the comedy register of Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra but asks for a colder reading of it.
Is Paris Burning? (1966)
A deliberate change of key after Crooks in Clover — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Bride Wore Black (1968)
Keeps the drama register of Is Paris Burning? but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jean Rochefort, l'irrésistible (2020)
A deliberate change of key after The Bride Wore Black — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Yves Robert
Director
1 film together
Notably Neither Seen Nor Recognized
Georges Lautner
Director
1 film together
Notably Crooks in Clover
René Clément
Director
1 film together
Notably Is Paris Burning?
François Truffaut
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bride Wore Black
Alain Chabat
Director
1 film together
Notably Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Alain Chabat
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Asterix & Obelix: Mission CleopatraGeorges Lautner
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crooks in CloverRené Clément
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Is Paris Burning?François Truffaut
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bride Wore BlackYves Robert
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Neither Seen Nor RecognizedSix 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
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Crooks in Clover
as Antoine Delafoy
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Is Paris Burning?
as General Leclerc
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
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. Claude Rich 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
3 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
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Bride Wore Black
as Bliss
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Bride Wore Black
as Bliss
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
as Panoramix
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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