Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#59928
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
David Agranov 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.
David Agranov appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. X-Men: First Class is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Matthew Vaughn, Phillip Noyce, Shawn Levy, David Agranov 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.
X-Men: First Class (2011) as Soviet NCO · Salt (2010) as Orlov Lieutenant (uncredited) · Shooting Watermelons (2023) as Fritz
Career snapshot
Ranked #59928 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
2003–2026
Career length
23 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
X-Men: First Class
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
X-Men: First Class
Most frequent director
Matthew Vaughn
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Matthew Vaughn
Most common genre
Thriller
3 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
6.3
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
2010s
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Whistlers, X-Men: First Class, Salt — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.6
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. Just Married.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | 5.82 films |
| Action | — | 6.82 films | — |
| Thriller | — | 6.22 films | 5.51 film |
| Comedy | 5.81 film | — | — |
| Crime | — | 6.01 film | 5.51 film |
| Romance | 5.81 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2003Just Married
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Paul McNerney.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.3 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.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as David Hanker.
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 Soviet NCO
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
as David Hanker
Directed by Unknown
as Denis
Directed by Unknown
as Orlov Lieutenant (uncredited)
Directed by Phillip Noyce
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
Soviet NCO
X-Men: First Class (2011)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Soviet NCO gives David Agranov a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
David Hanker
In the Hand of Dante (2026)
Performance score6.5
In the Hand of Dante asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. David Hanker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Fritz
Shooting Watermelons (2023)
Performance score6.5
Shooting Watermelons asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fritz is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Denis
The Whistlers (2019)
Performance score6.5
The Whistlers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Denis 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 Soviet NCO
Start here. X-Men: First Class is the clearest statement of what David Agranov does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 7.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet David 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.
Salt (2010)
Keeps the action register of X-Men: First Class but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Whistlers (2019)
Keeps the thriller register of Salt but asks for a colder reading of it.
Shooting Watermelons (2023)
Same director as The Whistlers, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
In the Hand of Dante (2026)
Same director as Shooting Watermelons, 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.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Matthew Vaughn
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
X-Men: First ClassPhillip Noyce
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SaltShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Just MarriedSix 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
X-Men: First Class
as Soviet NCO
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Just Married
as Paul McNerney
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
X-Men: First Class
as Soviet NCO
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Salt
as Orlov Lieutenant (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
X-Men: First Class
as Soviet NCO
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. David Agranov 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.
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
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
X-Men: First Class
as Soviet NCO
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Salt
as Orlov Lieutenant (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Just Married
as Paul McNerney
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Salt
as Orlov Lieutenant (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
X-Men: First Class
as Soviet NCO
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
X-Men: First Class
as Soviet NCO
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
In the Hand of Dante
as David Hanker
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Whistlers
as Denis
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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