Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#282
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Common 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.
Common appears in 34 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Common. Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 history, documentary, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Charlie Day, Nas, Tate Taylor and others, Common 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.
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince (2020) as Self · The Hate U Give (2018) as Uncle Carlos · American Gangster (2007) as Turner Lucas
Career snapshot
Ranked #282 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
34
2006–2026
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
The Hate U Give
Most frequent director
David Ayer
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With David Ayer
Most common genre
Thriller
13 titles
Average runtime
2h 1m
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
6.4
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
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Terminator Salvation, Wanted, Street Kings — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.7
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. Terminator Salvation, Wanted, Street Kings.
Most productive era
2010s
19 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 | 7.22 films | 6.98 films | 5.61 film |
| Action | 6.54 films | 6.56 films | 5.72 films |
| Thriller | 6.54 films | 6.86 films | 5.73 films |
| Comedy | 6.51 film | 6.06 films | 4.61 film |
| Crime | 6.94 films | 6.87 films | 5.81 film |
| Romance | — | 5.91 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2006Smokin' Aces
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Sir Ivy.
Career peak
2018The Hate U Give
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2020Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
7.9 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026W.E.B. Du Bois: Rebel With a Cause
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.
34 of 34 films
as Uncle Carlos
Directed by George Tillman Jr.
as Cassian
Directed by Chad Stahelski
as Benjamin Adebayo
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.
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The defining work
#1
Uncle Carlos
The Hate U Give (2018)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Uncle Carlos gives Common a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince (2020)
Performance score7.7
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Cassian
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Performance score7.6
John Wick: Chapter 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cassian is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Turner Lucas
American Gangster (2007)
Performance score7.4
American Gangster asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Turner Lucas 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 Uncle Carlos
Start here. The Hate U Give is the clearest statement of what Common does — accessible, 133 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Common 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.
American Gangster (2007)
Keeps the crime register of The Hate U Give but asks for a colder reading of it.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
Keeps the crime register of American Gangster but asks for a colder reading of it.
Saint Judy (2018)
A deliberate change of key after John Wick: Chapter 2 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince (2020)
Same director as Saint Judy, 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.
David Ayer
Director
2 films together
Notably Street Kings
Joe Carnahan
Director
1 film together
Notably Smokin' Aces
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably American Gangster
Timur Bekmambetov
Director
1 film together
Notably Wanted
McG
Director
1 film together
Notably Terminator Salvation
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Date Night
Garry Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably New Year's Eve
George Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Happy Feet Two
Brett Ratner
Director
1 film together
Notably Movie 43
Louis Leterrier
Director
1 film together
Notably Now You See Me
Ava DuVernay
Director
1 film together
Notably Selma
Jaume Collet-Serra
Director
1 film together
Notably Run All Night
Doug Ellin
Director
1 film together
Notably Entourage
Chad Stahelski
Director
1 film together
Notably John Wick: Chapter 2
Karey Kirkpatrick
Director
1 film together
Notably Smallfoot
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hate U Give
Tate Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Ava
Nas
Director
1 film together
Notably You're Watching Video Music Box
Charlie Day
Director
1 film together
Notably Fool's Paradise
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Ayer
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Street KingsGeorge Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Hate U GiveRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American GangsterAva DuVernay
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SelmaChad Stahelski
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
John Wick: Chapter 2Louis Leterrier
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Now You See MeKarey Kirkpatrick
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SmallfootTimur Bekmambetov
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
WantedJoe Carnahan
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Smokin' AcesNas
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You're Watching Video Music BoxJaume Collet-Serra
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Run All NightDoug Ellin
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EntourageGeorge Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happy Feet TwoShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Date NightMcG
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Terminator SalvationGarry Marshall
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New Year's EveTate Taylor
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AvaBrett Ratner
Director
1 film together · 4.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Movie 43Charlie Day
Director
1 film together · 4.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fool's ParadiseSix 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 Hate U Give
as Uncle Carlos
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
as Self
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
One World: Together at Home
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Hate U Give
as Uncle Carlos
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. Common 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
20 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
John Wick: Chapter 2
as Cassian
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince
as Self
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Every Secret Thing
as Devlin Hatch
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
John Wick: Chapter 2
as Cassian
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Suicide Squad
as Monster T
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Smallfoot
as Stonekeeper (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Wanted
as The Gunsmith
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Bonnie Hunt
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Have your say
Community
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Reference
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