Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#19917
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Floyd Levine represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 38 years in, and Floyd is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Floyd Levine appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Floyd. Dog Day Afternoon is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 comedy, fantasy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Brian Robbins, Todd Phillips, Thomas Carter and others, Floyd Levine 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.
Dog Day Afternoon (1975) as Phone Cop · The Hangover (2009) as Tailor · Coach Carter (2005) as Taxi Driver
Career snapshot
Ranked #19917 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
1974–2012
Career length
38 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Dog Day Afternoon
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Dog Day Afternoon
Most frequent director
Brian Robbins
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Brian Robbins
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.7
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
1970s
7.3 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Dog Day Afternoon, Death Wish — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.4
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Dog Day Afternoon, Death Wish.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1970s | 1980s | 2000s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.32 films | — | 7.51 film | 6.11 film |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.01 film | — | — |
| Thriller | 7.71 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.11 film | 6.23 films | 6.11 film |
| Crime | 7.32 films | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1974Death Wish
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Desk Sergeant.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.7 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
2012A Thousand Words
The current state of the argument, as Man on Pier.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Phone Cop
Directed by Sidney Lumet
as Taxi Driver
Directed by Thomas Carter
as Desk Sergeant
Directed by Michael Winner
as Man on Pier
Directed by Brian Robbins
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
Phone Cop
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Phone Cop gives Floyd Levine a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tailor
The Hangover (2009)
Performance score7.4
The Hangover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tailor is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Taxi Driver
Coach Carter (2005)
Performance score7.3
Coach Carter asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Taxi Driver is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Desk Sergeant
Death Wish (1974)
Performance score6.7
Death Wish asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Desk Sergeant 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 Phone Cop
Start here. Dog Day Afternoon is the clearest statement of what Floyd Levine does — accessible, 125 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Floyd 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.
Death Wish (1974)
Keeps the crime register of Dog Day Afternoon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Coach Carter (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Death Wish but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Hangover (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Coach Carter — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
A Thousand Words (2012)
Keeps the comedy register of The Hangover but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Brian Robbins
Director
3 films together
Notably A Thousand Words
Michael Winner
Director
1 film together
Notably Death Wish
Sidney Lumet
Director
1 film together
Notably Dog Day Afternoon
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Night Shift
Aaron Norris
Director
1 film together
Notably Braddock: Missing in Action III
Thomas Carter
Director
1 film together
Notably Coach Carter
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hangover
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Brian Robbins
Director
3 films together · 5.7 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
A Thousand WordsSidney Lumet
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dog Day AfternoonTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HangoverThomas Carter
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Coach CarterMichael Winner
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Death WishRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night ShiftAaron Norris
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Braddock: Missing in Action IIISix 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
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Coach Carter
as Taxi Driver
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Coach Carter
as Taxi Driver
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
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. Floyd Levine 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
38 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
5 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
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Coach Carter
as Taxi Driver
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Death Wish
as Desk Sergeant
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Death Wish
as Desk Sergeant
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Dog Day Afternoon
as Phone Cop
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Hangover
as Tailor
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Floyd Levine performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
