Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18505
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Margulies represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 40 years in, and David is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
David Margulies appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Ghostbusters is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for documentary, crime, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with J.C. Chandor, Kat Coiro, John Turturro and others, David Margulies 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.
Ghostbusters (1984) as Mayor · Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters (2020) as Self · Dressed to Kill (1980) as Dr. Levy
Career snapshot
Ranked #18505 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
1980–2020
Career length
40 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Ghostbusters
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Ghostbusters
Most frequent director
Ivan Reitman
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Ivan Reitman
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 43m
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
1980s
7.1 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters, Dressed to Kill — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.1
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters, Dressed to Kill.
Most productive era
2010s
4 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.01 film | 6.61 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | — | 6.32 films | — |
| Comedy | 7.22 films | 6.32 films | 5.72 films | — |
| Crime | — | 6.71 film | 6.61 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | 5.82 films | — |
| Horror | 6.91 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1980Dressed to Kill
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Dr. Levy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1984Ghostbusters
7.6 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
2020Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters
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.
10 of 10 films
as Mayor
Directed by Ivan Reitman
as Dr. Levy
Directed by Brian De Palma
as Saul Lefkowitz
Directed by J.C. Chandor
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
Mayor
Ghostbusters (1984)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mayor gives David Margulies a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Levy
Dressed to Kill (1980)
Performance score7.1
Dressed to Kill asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Levy is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters (2020)
Performance score6.8
Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters 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#4
Saul Lefkowitz
A Most Violent Year (2014)
Performance score6.6
A Most Violent Year asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Saul Lefkowitz 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 Mayor
Start here. Ghostbusters is the clearest statement of what David Margulies does — accessible, 105 minutes, and rated 7.6 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.
Dressed to Kill (1980)
A deliberate change of key after Ghostbusters — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994)
Keeps the mystery register of Dressed to Kill but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Most Violent Year (2014)
Keeps the crime register of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective but asks for a colder reading of it.
Cleanin' Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters (2020)
A deliberate change of key after A Most Violent Year — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ivan Reitman
Director
2 films together
Notably Ghostbusters
Brian De Palma
Director
1 film together
Notably Dressed to Kill
Tom Shadyac
Director
1 film together
Notably Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Celebrity
Andrew Jarecki
Director
1 film together
Notably All Good Things
John Turturro
Director
1 film together
Notably Fading Gigolo
Kat Coiro
Director
1 film together
Notably A Case of You
J.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together
Notably A Most Violent Year
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ivan Reitman
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
GhostbustersBrian De Palma
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dressed to KillTom Shadyac
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ace Ventura: Pet DetectiveJ.C. Chandor
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Most Violent YearAndrew Jarecki
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Good ThingsWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CelebrityJohn Turturro
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fading GigoloKat Coiro
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Case of YouSix 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
Ghostbusters
as Mayor
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
A Case of You
as Henry
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ghostbusters
as Mayor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Celebrity
as Counselor Adelman
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ghostbusters
as Mayor
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 Margulies 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
40 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
6 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
Ghostbusters
as Mayor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dressed to Kill
as Dr. Levy
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Case of You
as Henry
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Doctor
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ghostbusters
as Mayor
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ghostbusters II
as The Mayor of NY
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Most Violent Year
as Saul Lefkowitz
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
as Doctor
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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Morgan Freeman
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Zach Grenier
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Have your say
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Reference
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