Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#24552
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Donald Cerrone 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.
Donald Cerrone appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Donald. Prisoner of War is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 war, action, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tony Tost, Louis Mandylor, Keith Jardine and others, Donald Cerrone 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.
Prisoner of War (2025) as Captain Collins · Lights Out (2024) as Carter · The Equalizer 2 (2018) as Belgian Backpacker
Career snapshot
Ranked #24552 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2018–2026
Career length
8 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Prisoner of War
Average Nutevio score
4.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Prisoner of War
Most frequent director
Tony Tost
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Tony Tost
Most common genre
Action
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 25m
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
6.1
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
2020s
5.9 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Winter: Battleground, Americana, Prisoner of War — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
5.9
Across 12 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
5.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. UFC Fight Night 158: Cerrone vs. Gaethje, UFC Fight Night 143: Cejudo vs. Dillashaw, UFC Fight Night 139: Korean Zombie vs Rodriguez.
Most productive era
2020s
12 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.71 film |
| Action | 3.42 films | 5.98 films |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 5.97 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.13 films |
| Crime | 6.81 film | 6.02 films |
| Horror | — | 5.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2018UFC Fight Night 139: Korean Zombie vs Rodriguez
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Self.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2025Prisoner of War
7.1 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.
Most recent film
The current state of the argument, as Winter.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Captain Collins
Directed by Louis Mandylor
as Carter
Directed by Unknown
as Belgian Backpacker
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
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
Captain Collins
Prisoner of War (2025)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Captain Collins gives Donald Cerrone a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Carter
Lights Out (2024)
Performance score6.9
Lights Out asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carter is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Belgian Backpacker
The Equalizer 2 (2018)
Performance score6.7
The Equalizer 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Belgian Backpacker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Jeb
Terror on the Prairie (2022)
Performance score6.6
Terror on the Prairie asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jeb 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 Captain Collins
Start here. Prisoner of War is the clearest statement of what Donald Cerrone does — accessible, 113 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Donald 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 Equalizer 2 (2018)
Keeps the action register of Prisoner of War but asks for a colder reading of it.
Embattled (2020)
Keeps the action register of The Equalizer 2 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Terror on the Prairie (2022)
Same director as Embattled, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Lights Out (2024)
Same director as Terror on the Prairie, 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.
Antoine Fuqua
Director
1 film together
Notably The Equalizer 2
Peter Berg
Director
1 film together
Notably Spenser Confidential
Tony Schiena
Director
1 film together
Notably The Weapon
Michael Jai White
Director
1 film together
Notably Outlaw Johnny Black
Keith Jardine
Director
1 film together
Notably Kill Me Again
Louis Mandylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Prisoner of War
Tony Tost
Director
1 film together
Notably Americana
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Louis Mandylor
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Prisoner of WarAntoine Fuqua
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 Equalizer 2Peter Berg
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spenser ConfidentialTony Tost
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AmericanaKeith Jardine
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kill Me AgainMichael Jai White
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Outlaw Johnny BlackTony Schiena
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The WeaponSix 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
Prisoner of War
as Captain Collins
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Embattled
as Autograph Jack
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Prisoner of War
as Captain Collins
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Equalizer 2
as Belgian Backpacker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Prisoner of War
as Captain Collins
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. Donald Cerrone 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in action, 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
Prisoner of War
as Captain Collins
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Lights Out
as Carter
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Embattled
as Autograph Jack
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Equalizer 2
as Belgian Backpacker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Lights Out
as Carter
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Outlaw Johnny Black
as Crackshot Bob
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Prisoner of War
as Captain Collins
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Outlaw Johnny Black
as Crackshot Bob
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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