Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Henri Vilbert appears in 3 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Henri. The Murderer Lives at Number 21 is the clearest case: a film rated 6.8 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, transformation, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, adventure, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jacques Becker, Maurice Tourneur, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Henri Vilbert 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.
The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942) as Police Officer (uncredited) · Carnival of Sinners (1943) as Brigadier (uncredited) · Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1954) as Cassim
Career snapshot
A Nutevio catalogue profile for Henri Vilbert.
Films in Nutevio
3
1942–1954
Career length
12 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.8
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
Most frequent director
Jacques Becker
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Jacques Becker
Most common genre
Comedy
2 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
6.3
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
1940s
6.7 average MV
The 1940s are where the work and the material meet. Carnival of Sinners, The Murderer Lives at Number 21 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1940s
6.7
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1940s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Carnival of Sinners, The Murderer Lives at Number 21.
Most productive era
1940s
2 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 | 1940s | 1950s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.51 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | — |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | 6.31 film |
| Horror | 6.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
1942The Murderer Lives at Number 21
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Police Officer (uncredited). 6.8 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
1954Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
The current state of the argument, as Cassim.
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.
3 of 3 films
as Police Officer (uncredited)
Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
as Brigadier (uncredited)
Directed by Maurice Tourneur
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
Police Officer (uncredited)
The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942)
Performance score6.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Police Officer (uncredited) gives Henri Vilbert a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Cassim
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1954)
Performance score6.5
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cassim is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Brigadier (uncredited)
Carnival of Sinners (1943)
Performance score6.5
Carnival of Sinners asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Brigadier (uncredited) 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 Police Officer (uncredited)
Start here. The Murderer Lives at Number 21 is the clearest statement of what Henri Vilbert does — accessible, 83 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Henri 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.
Carnival of Sinners (1943)
A deliberate change of key after The Murderer Lives at Number 21 — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1954)
A deliberate change of key after Carnival of Sinners — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
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.
Henri-Georges Clouzot
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 Murderer Lives at Number 21Maurice Tourneur
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Carnival of SinnersJacques Becker
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ali Baba and the Forty ThievesSix 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
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Carnival of Sinners
as Brigadier (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
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. Henri Vilbert 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
2 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
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Carnival of Sinners
as Brigadier (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Murderer Lives at Number 21
as Police Officer (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
as Cassim
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
as Cassim
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
as Cassim
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
Community
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Reference
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