Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#7903
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Craig Bierko represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Craig is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Craig Bierko appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Craig. Cinderella Man is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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 music, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with David Dobkin, Craig Mazin, Melisa Wallack and others, Craig Bierko 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.
Cinderella Man (2005) as Max Baer · Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) as Lacerda · The Thirteenth Floor (1999) as Douglas Hall
Career snapshot
Ranked #7903 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1998–2024
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Cinderella Man
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
Cinderella Man
Most frequent director
David Dobkin
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With David Dobkin
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 47m
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
6.5
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
1990s
7.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. The Thirteenth Floor, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.1
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Thirteenth Floor, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Most productive era
2000s
6 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.21 film | 6.82 films | — | 6.91 film |
| Action | — | 5.31 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 7.01 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | 5.85 films | 6.21 film | — |
| Romance | — | 6.63 films | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1998Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Lacerda.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2005Cinderella Man
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2024Girl From the North Country
The current state of the argument, as Mr. Burke.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Douglas Hall
Directed by Josef Rusnak
as Max Baer
Directed by Ron Howard
as Lacerda
Directed by Terry Gilliam
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
Douglas Hall
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Douglas Hall gives Craig Bierko a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Max Baer
Cinderella Man (2005)
Performance score7.5
Cinderella Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Max Baer is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mr. Burke
Girl From the North Country (2024)
Performance score7.1
Girl From the North Country asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Burke is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lacerda
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Performance score7.1
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lacerda 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 Douglas Hall
Start here. The Thirteenth Floor is the clearest statement of what Craig Bierko does — accessible, 100 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Craig 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.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
A deliberate change of key after The Thirteenth Floor — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cinderella Man (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Change-Up (2011)
A deliberate change of key after Cinderella Man — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Girl From the North Country (2024)
A deliberate change of key after The Change-Up — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Terry Gilliam
Director
1 film together
Notably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Josef Rusnak
Director
1 film together
Notably The Thirteenth Floor
James Mangold
Director
1 film together
Notably Kate & Leopold
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Cinderella Man
Christopher Guest
Director
1 film together
Notably For Your Consideration
David Zucker
Director
1 film together
Notably Scary Movie 4
Melisa Wallack
Director
1 film together
Notably Meet Bill
Craig Mazin
Director
1 film together
Notably Superhero Movie
David Dobkin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Change-Up
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cinderella ManTerry Gilliam
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fear and Loathing in Las VegasJosef Rusnak
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Thirteenth FloorJames Mangold
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kate & LeopoldDavid Dobkin
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Change-UpMelisa Wallack
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Meet BillChristopher Guest
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For Your ConsiderationDavid Zucker
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Scary Movie 4Craig Mazin
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Superhero MovieSix 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
Cinderella Man
as Max Baer
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Cinderella Man
as Max Baer
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Cinderella Man
as Max Baer
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Kate & Leopold
as Actor in Advertisement (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Thirteenth Floor
as Douglas Hall
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. Craig Bierko 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
26 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
7 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
The Thirteenth Floor
as Douglas Hall
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Thirteenth Floor
as Douglas Hall
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Girl From the North Country
as Mr. Burke
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Thirteenth Floor
as Douglas Hall
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Lacerda
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Superhero Movie
as Wolverine (scenes deleted)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
as Lacerda
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Meet Bill
as Sargeant (uncredited)
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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