Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#49132
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Conrad Veidt 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.
Conrad Veidt appears in 5 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Conrad. Casablanca is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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 romance, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Curtiz, Vincent Sherman, Tim Whelan and others, Conrad Veidt 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.
Casablanca (1943) as Major Heinrich Strasser · The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) as Cesare · The Thief of Bagdad (1940) as Jaffar
Career snapshot
Ranked #49132 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
5
1920–1943
Career length
23 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Casablanca
Average Nutevio score
7.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Casablanca
Most frequent director
Michael Curtiz
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Curtiz
Most common genre
Thriller
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
6.7
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
1920s
7.6 average MV
The 1920s are where the work and the material meet. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1920s
7.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1920s
7.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1920s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Most productive era
1940s
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 | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.61 film | — | 8.11 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | 7.61 film | 6.41 film | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.51 film |
| Crime | 7.61 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | 7.42 films |
| Horror | 7.61 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1920The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cesare.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
1943Casablanca
8.1 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, as Major Heinrich Strasser.
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.
5 of 5 films
as Major Heinrich Strasser
Directed by Michael Curtiz
as Cesare
Directed by Robert Wiene
as Jaffar
Directed by Tim Whelan
as Captain Ernst Hardt
Directed by Michael Powell
as Franz Ebbing
Directed by Vincent Sherman
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
Major Heinrich Strasser
Casablanca (1943)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Major Heinrich Strasser gives Conrad Veidt a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cesare
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Performance score7.9
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cesare is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Jaffar
The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
Performance score7.4
The Thief of Bagdad asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jaffar is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Captain Ernst Hardt
The Spy in Black (1939)
Performance score7.1
The Spy in Black asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Captain Ernst Hardt 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 Major Heinrich Strasser
Start here. Casablanca is the clearest statement of what Conrad Veidt does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 8.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Conrad 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 Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Keeps the drama register of Casablanca but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Spy in Black (1939)
Keeps the thriller register of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Thief of Bagdad (1940)
A deliberate change of key after The Spy in Black — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
All Through the Night (1942)
A deliberate change of key after The Thief of Bagdad — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Robert Wiene
Director
1 film together
Notably The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Michael Powell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Spy in Black
Tim Whelan
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thief of Bagdad
Vincent Sherman
Director
1 film together
Notably All Through the Night
Michael Curtiz
Director
1 film together
Notably Casablanca
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Curtiz
Director
1 film together · 8.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CasablancaRobert Wiene
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Cabinet of Dr. CaligariTim Whelan
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 Thief of BagdadVincent Sherman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Through the NightMichael Powell
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Spy in BlackSix 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
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
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. Conrad Veidt 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
23 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
3 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
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
as Cesare
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
as Cesare
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
All Through the Night
as Franz Ebbing
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Casablanca
as Major Heinrich Strasser
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
Community
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Reference
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