Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#30950
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Klaus Kinski represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 70 years in, and Klaus is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Klaus Kinski appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Klaus. For a Few Dollars More is the clearest case: a film rated 7.9 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 history, documentary, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Werner Herzog, Les Blank, Damiano Damiani and others, Klaus Kinski 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.
For a Few Dollars More (1965) as Juan Wild - The Hunchback · Doctor Zhivago (1965) as Kostoyed Amourski · Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) as Don Lope de Aguirre
Career snapshot
Ranked #30950 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1951–2021
Career length
70 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.9
For a Few Dollars More
Average Nutevio score
7.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
For a Few Dollars More
Most frequent director
Werner Herzog
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Werner Herzog
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
7.2
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
1960s
7.4 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. The Great Silence, Doctor Zhivago, For a Few Dollars More — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.4
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.7
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. A Time to Love and a Time to Die, Decision Before Dawn.
Most productive era
1960s
3 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.71 film | 7.22 films | 7.22 films | — | — | — |
| Action | 6.51 film | — | — | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.51 film | — | — | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | 6.31 film | — | — | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 7.31 film | — | — | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | 7.11 film | — | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Whining Soldier (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.9 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
2021Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained
The current state of the argument, as Self - Actor (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.
11 of 11 films
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
Directed by Sergio Leone
as Don Lope de Aguirre
Directed by Werner Herzog
as Loco (Tigrero)
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
as Self - Actor
Directed by Les Blank
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
Juan Wild - The Hunchback
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Juan Wild - The Hunchback gives Klaus Kinski a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Don Lope de Aguirre
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Performance score7.8
Aguirre, the Wrath of God asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Don Lope de Aguirre is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Count Dracula
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Performance score7.7
Nosferatu the Vampyre asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Count Dracula is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Loco (Tigrero)
The Great Silence (1968)
Performance score7.5
The Great Silence asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Loco (Tigrero) 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 Juan Wild - The Hunchback
Start here. For a Few Dollars More is the clearest statement of what Klaus Kinski does — accessible, 132 minutes, and rated 7.9 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Klaus 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 Great Silence (1968)
Keeps the western register of For a Few Dollars More but asks for a colder reading of it.
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
Keeps the drama register of The Great Silence but asks for a colder reading of it.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Same director as Aguirre, the Wrath of God, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Burden of Dreams (1982)
A deliberate change of key after Nosferatu the Vampyre — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Werner Herzog
Director
3 films together
Notably Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Anatole Litvak
Director
1 film together
Notably Decision Before Dawn
Douglas Sirk
Director
1 film together
Notably A Time to Love and a Time to Die
Sergio Leone
Director
1 film together
Notably For a Few Dollars More
David Lean
Director
1 film together
Notably Doctor Zhivago
Sergio Corbucci
Director
1 film together
Notably The Great Silence
Damiano Damiani
Director
1 film together
Notably A Genius, Two Friends, and an Idiot
Les Blank
Director
1 film together
Notably Burden of Dreams
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Werner Herzog
Director
3 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Aguirre, the Wrath of GodSergio Leone
Director
1 film together · 7.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
For a Few Dollars MoreDavid Lean
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Doctor ZhivagoSergio Corbucci
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 Great SilenceLes Blank
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Burden of DreamsDouglas Sirk
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Time to Love and a Time to DieAnatole Litvak
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Decision Before DawnDamiano Damiani
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Genius, Two Friends, and an IdiotSix 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
For a Few Dollars More
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
as Don Lope de Aguirre
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
For a Few Dollars More
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Decision Before Dawn
as Whining Soldier (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
For a Few Dollars More
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
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. Klaus Kinski 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
70 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 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
For a Few Dollars More
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Nosferatu the Vampyre
as Count Dracula
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
as Don Lope de Aguirre
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
For a Few Dollars More
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
For a Few Dollars More
as Juan Wild - The Hunchback
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
as Don Lope de Aguirre
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
as Don Lope de Aguirre
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Django & Django: Sergio Corbucci Unchained
as Self - Actor (archive footage)
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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