Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#9431
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Jeanne Moreau represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 71 years in, and Jeanne is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Jeanne Moreau appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Jeanne. Bardot is the clearest case: a film rated 8.3 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 documentary, tv movie, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Stanley Nelson, Andrei Konchalovsky, Andy Tennant and others, Jeanne Moreau 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.
Bardot (2025) as archive footage · Belmondo: The Incorrigible (2022) · The 400 Blows (1959) as La Femme avec le chien
Career snapshot
Ranked #9431 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
1954–2025
Career length
71 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.3
Bardot
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.3
Bardot
Most frequent director
François Truffaut
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With François Truffaut
Most common genre
Drama
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 44m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.2
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
7.1
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
1950s
7.3 average MV
The 1950s are where the work and the material meet. The 400 Blows, Elevator to the Gallows, Touchez Pas au Grisbi — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1950s
7.3
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1950s
7.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1950s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The 400 Blows, Elevator to the Gallows, Touchez Pas au Grisbi.
Most productive era
1960s
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 | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.52 films | 7.16 films | 6.52 films | 7.12 films | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Action | — | — | — | 7.11 film | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 7.02 films | 7.11 film | 6.91 film | 7.11 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.02 films | — | 7.51 film | 6.51 film | — | — |
| Crime | 7.02 films | 6.92 films | — | — | — | — | — |
| Romance | — | 7.23 films | — | 7.51 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Josy.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2025Bardot
8.3 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. The current state of the argument, as archive footage.
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.
21 of 21 films
Directed by Unknown
as Catherine
Directed by François Truffaut
as Lidia
Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
as Florence Carala
Directed by Louis Malle
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
archive footage
Bardot (2025)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. archive footage gives Jeanne Moreau a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Belmondo: The Incorrigible
Belmondo: The Incorrigible (2022)
Performance score7.9
Belmondo: The Incorrigible asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Catherine
Jules and Jim (1962)
Performance score7.8
Jules and Jim asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Catherine is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Lidia
La Notte (1961)
Performance score7.8
La Notte asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Lidia 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 archive footage
Start here. Bardot is the clearest statement of what Jeanne Moreau does — accessible, 95 minutes, and rated 8.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Jeanne 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.
Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
A deliberate change of key after Bardot — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
La Notte (1961)
Keeps the drama register of Elevator to the Gallows but asks for a colder reading of it.
Jules and Jim (1962)
Keeps the romance register of La Notte but asks for a colder reading of it.
Belmondo: The Incorrigible (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Jules and Jim — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
François Truffaut
Director
3 films together
Notably The 400 Blows
Orson Welles
Director
2 films together
Notably The Trial
Jacques Becker
Director
1 film together
Notably Touchez Pas au Grisbi
Louis Malle
Director
1 film together
Notably Elevator to the Gallows
Michelangelo Antonioni
Director
1 film together
Notably La Notte
Jean-Luc Godard
Director
1 film together
Notably A Woman Is a Woman
John Frankenheimer
Director
1 film together
Notably The Train
Joseph Losey
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Klein
Jeanne Moreau
Director
1 film together
Notably The Adolescent
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably Nikita
Wim Wenders
Director
1 film together
Notably Until the End of the World
Andy Tennant
Director
1 film together
Notably EverAfter
Andrei Konchalovsky
Director
1 film together
Notably To Each His Own Cinema
Stanley Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
François Truffaut
Director
3 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The 400 BlowsOrson Welles
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The TrialAndy Tennant
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EverAfterMichelangelo Antonioni
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
La NotteLouis Malle
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Elevator to the GallowsStanley Nelson
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miles Davis: Birth of the CoolLuc Besson
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NikitaJohn Frankenheimer
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The TrainJean-Luc Godard
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Woman Is a WomanJoseph Losey
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. KleinJacques Becker
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Touchez Pas au GrisbiWim Wenders
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Until the End of the WorldAndrei Konchalovsky
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
To Each His Own CinemaJeanne Moreau
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The AdolescentSix 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
Bardot
as archive footage
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 Notte
as Lidia
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 400 Blows
as La Femme avec le chien
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
as Self - Actress (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Bardot
as archive footage
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. Jeanne Moreau 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
71 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.
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
Bardot
as archive footage
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Trial
as Marika Burstner
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
as Self - Actress (archive footage)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Trial
as Marika Burstner
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Bardot
as archive footage
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Nikita
as Armande
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Chimes at Midnight
as Doll Tearsheet
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Adolescent
as La narratrice (voice) (uncredited)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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