Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#5015
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Horatio Sanz represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 29 years in, and Horatio is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Horatio Sanz appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Horatio. Clifford the Big Red Dog is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 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, drama, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Phil Johnston, Larry Charles, Leslye Headland and others, Horatio Sanz 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.
Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021) as Raul · Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) as Duncan (voice) · Miracle on 34th Street (1994) as Orderly
Career snapshot
Ranked #5015 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
1994–2023
Career length
29 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Clifford the Big Red Dog
Average Nutevio score
5.7
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Most frequent director
Adam McKay
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Adam McKay
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
1990s
6.8 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Miracle on 34th Street — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.8
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Miracle on 34th Street.
Most productive era
2000s
7 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.81 film | 5.71 film | — | 2.91 film |
| Action | — | 5.81 film | 6.82 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 5.56 films | 6.15 films | 5.02 films |
| Crime | — | 5.81 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | 5.43 films | 5.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Orderly.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.2 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
2023Camp
The current state of the argument, as Hulk.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Raul
Directed by Unknown
as Duncan (voice)
Directed by Phil Johnston
as Orderly
Directed by Les Mayfield
as Lead Singer
Directed by Adam McKay
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
Raul
Clifford the Big Red Dog (2021)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Raul gives Horatio Sanz a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Duncan (voice)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Performance score7.1
Ralph Breaks the Internet asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Duncan (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Orderly
Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
Performance score6.7
Miracle on 34th Street asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Orderly is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lead Singer
Step Brothers (2008)
Performance score6.6
Step Brothers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lead Singer 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 Raul
Start here. Clifford the Big Red Dog is the clearest statement of what Horatio Sanz does — accessible, 96 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Horatio 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.
Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
Keeps the fantasy register of Clifford the Big Red Dog but asks for a colder reading of it.
Step Brothers (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Miracle on 34th Street — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)
Keeps the comedy register of Step Brothers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Camp (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Ralph Breaks the Internet but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Les Mayfield
Director
2 films together
Notably Miracle on 34th Street
Adam McKay
Director
2 films together
Notably Step Brothers
Mort Nathan
Director
1 film together
Notably Boat Trip
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably School for Scoundrels
Curtis Hanson
Director
1 film together
Notably Lucky You
Harold Ramis
Director
1 film together
Notably Year One
Leslye Headland
Director
1 film together
Notably Bachelorette
Larry Charles
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dictator
Phil Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably Ralph Breaks the Internet
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Adam McKay
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
Step BrothersLes Mayfield
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Miracle on 34th StreetPhil Johnston
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Ralph Breaks the InternetLarry Charles
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DictatorCurtis Hanson
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Lucky YouTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
School for ScoundrelsLeslye Headland
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BacheloretteMort Nathan
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Boat TripHarold Ramis
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Year OneSix 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
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as Duncan (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Miracle on 34th Street
as Orderly
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as Duncan (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Other Guys
as Gallery Owner
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Clifford the Big Red Dog
as Raul
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. Horatio Sanz 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
29 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
13 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
Clifford the Big Red Dog
as Raul
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as Duncan (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Lucky You
as Ready Eddie
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Miracle on 34th Street
as Orderly
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as Duncan (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ralph Breaks the Internet
as Duncan (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Clifford the Big Red Dog
as Raul
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Clifford the Big Red Dog
as Raul
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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