Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#16620
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Leonardo Sbaraglia works on versatility rather than volume, and the catalogue keeps proving that the quieter choice was the correct one.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Leonardo Sbaraglia appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Leonardo. Leyenda feroz is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 thriller, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Pedro Almodóvar, Àlex Pastor, Dolores Fonzi and others, Leonardo Sbaraglia 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.
Leyenda feroz (2024) · Wild Tales (2014) as Diego (segment "El más fuerte") · Finde (2021) as Emi
Career snapshot
Ranked #16620 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2012–2026
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Leyenda feroz
Average Nutevio score
5.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Leyenda feroz
Most frequent director
Pedro Almodóvar
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Pedro Almodóvar
Most common genre
Thriller
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
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
6.2
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
2010s
7.0 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Pain and Glory, The Legacy of the Bones, Wild Tales — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.0
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.0
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Pain and Glory, The Legacy of the Bones, Wild Tales.
Most productive era
2020s
13 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.62 films | 5.27 films |
| Thriller | 6.83 films | 5.46 films |
| Comedy | 7.81 film | 6.35 films |
| Crime | 6.51 film | 6.51 film |
| Romance | — | 4.31 film |
| Horror | — | 6.72 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2012Red Lights
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Palladino.
Career peak
2014Wild Tales
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
2024Leyenda feroz
8.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Bitter Christmas
The current state of the argument, as Raúl Durán.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Diego (segment "El más fuerte")
Directed by Damián Szifron
as Emi
Directed by Nano Garay Santalo
as Federico Delgado
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
as Eduardo
Directed by Dolores Fonzi
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
Diego (segment "El más fuerte")
Wild Tales (2014)
Performance score8.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Diego (segment "El más fuerte") gives Leonardo Sbaraglia a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Leyenda feroz
Leyenda feroz (2024)
Performance score8.0
Leyenda feroz 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
Emi
Finde (2021)
Performance score7.8
Finde asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Emi is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Federico Delgado
Pain and Glory (2019)
Performance score7.7
Pain and Glory asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Federico Delgado 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 Diego (segment "El más fuerte")
Start here. Wild Tales is the clearest statement of what Leonardo Sbaraglia does — accessible, 122 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Leonardo 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.
Pain and Glory (2019)
Keeps the drama register of Wild Tales but asks for a colder reading of it.
Finde (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Pain and Glory — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Blondi (2023)
Keeps the comedy register of Finde but asks for a colder reading of it.
Leyenda feroz (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Blondi — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Fernando González Molina
Director
2 films together
Notably Offering to the Storm
Pedro Almodóvar
Director
2 films together
Notably Pain and Glory
Rodrigo Cortés
Director
1 film together
Notably Red Lights
Damián Szifron
Director
1 film together
Notably Wild Tales
Olivier Assayas
Director
1 film together
Notably Wasp Network
Violeta Salama
Director
1 film together
Notably Alegría
Nano Garay Santalo
Director
1 film together
Notably Finde
Dolores Fonzi
Director
1 film together
Notably Blondi
Àlex Pastor
Director
1 film together
Notably Bird Box Barcelona
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Pedro Almodóvar
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Pain and GloryFernando González Molina
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Offering to the StormDamián Szifron
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wild TalesNano Garay Santalo
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FindeDolores Fonzi
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
BlondiRodrigo Cortés
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red LightsOlivier Assayas
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wasp NetworkÀlex Pastor
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bird Box BarcelonaVioleta Salama
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AlegríaSix 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
Wild Tales
as Diego (segment "El más fuerte")
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Wasp Network
as Basulto
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Leyenda feroz
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Leyenda feroz
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Wild Tales
as Diego (segment "El más fuerte")
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. Leonardo Sbaraglia 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Leyenda feroz
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Finde
as Emi
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Wasp Network
as Basulto
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Legacy of the Bones
as Juez Javier Markina
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Leyenda feroz
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Leyenda feroz
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Blondi
as Eduardo
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Offering to the Storm
as Javier Markina
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Robert Downey Jr.
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: crime and drama
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
Community
Which Leonardo Sbaraglia 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
