Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#10078
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Denis Ménochet 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.
Denis Ménochet appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Denis. Inglourious Basterds is the clearest case: a film rated 8.4 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 thriller, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Guy Maddin, Ari Aster, François Ozon and others, Denis Ménochet 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.
Inglourious Basterds (2009) as Perrier LaPadite · The Beasts (2022) as Antoine · The Round Up (2010) as Corot
Career snapshot
Ranked #10078 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2007–2026
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.4
Inglourious Basterds
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Inglourious Basterds
Most frequent director
François Ozon
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With François Ozon
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
2h 6m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
2000s
7.9 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Inglourious Basterds, La Vie en Rose — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
7.9
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
7.8
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. Inglourious Basterds, La Vie en Rose.
Most productive era
2010s
8 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 | 7.92 films | 6.67 films | 6.94 films |
| Action | — | 6.02 films | — |
| Thriller | 8.41 film | 5.91 film | 5.03 films |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.23 films |
| Crime | — | 6.32 films | — |
| Romance | — | — | 5.71 film |
| Horror | — | — | 4.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2007La Vie en Rose
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Journalist in Orly.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
8.4 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
2026Karma
The current state of the argument, as Daniel.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Perrier LaPadite
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
as Antoine
Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
as Michel Farange
Directed by Unknown
as Corot
Directed by Roselyne Bosch
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
Perrier LaPadite
Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Perrier LaPadite gives Denis Ménochet a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Antoine
The Beasts (2022)
Performance score7.8
The Beasts asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Antoine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
François Debord
By the Grace of God (2019)
Performance score7.5
By the Grace of God asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. François Debord is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Michel Farange
Only the Animals (2019)
Performance score7.4
Only the Animals asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Michel Farange 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 Perrier LaPadite
Start here. Inglourious Basterds is the clearest statement of what Denis Ménochet does — accessible, 153 minutes, and rated 8.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Denis 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 Round Up (2010)
Keeps the war register of Inglourious Basterds but asks for a colder reading of it.
By the Grace of God (2019)
Keeps the drama register of The Round Up but asks for a colder reading of it.
Only the Animals (2019)
Keeps the drama register of By the Grace of God but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Beasts (2022)
Keeps the drama register of Only the Animals but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
François Ozon
Director
2 films together
Notably By the Grace of God
Olivier Dahan
Director
1 film together
Notably La Vie en Rose
Quentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together
Notably Inglourious Basterds
Roselyne Bosch
Director
1 film together
Notably The Round Up
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Robin Hood
Stephen Frears
Director
1 film together
Notably The Program
Justin Kurzel
Director
1 film together
Notably Assassin's Creed
José Padilha
Director
1 film together
Notably 7 Days in Entebbe
Garth Davis
Director
1 film together
Notably Mary Magdalene
Kevin Macdonald
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mauritanian
Wes Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Beasts
Ari Aster
Director
1 film together
Notably Beau Is Afraid
Guy Maddin
Director
1 film together
Notably Rumours
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
François Ozon
Director
2 films together · 6.4 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
By the Grace of GodQuentin Tarantino
Director
1 film together · 8.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Inglourious BasterdsRodrigo Sorogoyen
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BeastsRoselyne Bosch
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Round UpKevin Macdonald
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MauritanianOlivier Dahan
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
La Vie en RoseWes Anderson
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 French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening SunAri Aster
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Beau Is AfraidStephen Frears
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 ProgramRidley Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Robin HoodGarth Davis
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mary MagdaleneJosé Padilha
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
7 Days in EntebbeJustin Kurzel
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Assassin's CreedGuy Maddin
Director
1 film together · 4.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RumoursSix 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
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
La Vie en Rose
as Journalist in Orly
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
La Vie en Rose
as Journalist in Orly
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
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. Denis Ménochet 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Drama Legend
Awarded
13 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Peter von Kant
as Peter von Kant
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
7 Days in Entebbe
as Jacques Le Moine
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Robin Hood
as Adhemar
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Round Up
as Corot
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Inglourious Basterds
as Perrier LaPadite
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
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Reference
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