Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#80866
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Lino Ventura represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 70 years in, and Lino is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Lino Ventura appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Lino. Patrick Dewaere, My Hero is the clearest case: a film rated 9.0 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 romance, comedy, music. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Henri Verneuil, Jean-Pierre Melville, Georges Lautner and others, Lino Ventura 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.
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero (2022) as Self (archive footage) - actor · Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress (2019) as Self (archive footage) · Army of Shadows (1969) as Philippe Gerbier
Career snapshot
Ranked #80866 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1954–2024
Career length
70 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.0
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
Average Nutevio score
7.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.0
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
Most frequent director
Henri Verneuil
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Henri Verneuil
Most common genre
Crime
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 46m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.3
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
7.4
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
2020s
7.5 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. At the End of the Day, Patrick Dewaere, My Hero — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.5
Across 2 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. Marie-Octobre, Elevator to the Gallows, Maigret Sets a Trap.
Most productive era
1950s
4 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.93 films | 7.32 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 7.02 films | 7.51 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 7.31 film | — | 5.91 film |
| Crime | 6.93 films | 7.22 films | — | — |
| Romance | — | — | — | 5.91 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Angelo Fraiser.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.0 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
The current state of the argument, as Lino (archive footage) (uncredited).
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 Self (archive footage) - actor
Directed by Unknown
as Philippe Gerbier
Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville
as Fernand Naudin
Directed by Georges Lautner
as Self (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
as Commissaire Le Goff
Directed by Henri Verneuil
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
Self (archive footage) - actor
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero (2022)
Performance score8.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self (archive footage) - actor gives Lino Ventura a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Philippe Gerbier
Army of Shadows (1969)
Performance score8.1
Army of Shadows asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Philippe Gerbier is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Fernand Naudin
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Performance score7.9
Crooks in Clover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Fernand Naudin is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self (archive footage)
Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress (2019)
Performance score7.5
Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self (archive footage) 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 Self (archive footage) - actor
Start here. Patrick Dewaere, My Hero is the clearest statement of what Lino Ventura does — accessible, 90 minutes, and rated 9.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Lino 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.
Crooks in Clover (1963)
A deliberate change of key after Patrick Dewaere, My Hero — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Army of Shadows (1969)
A deliberate change of key after Crooks in Clover — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Sicilian Clan (1969)
Keeps the drama register of Army of Shadows but asks for a colder reading of it.
Breakpoint: A Counter History of Progress (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Sicilian Clan — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jacques Becker
Director
1 film together
Notably Touchez Pas au Grisbi
Jean Delannoy
Director
1 film together
Notably Maigret Sets a Trap
Louis Malle
Director
1 film together
Notably Elevator to the Gallows
Julien Duvivier
Director
1 film together
Notably Marie-Octobre
Georges Lautner
Director
1 film together
Notably Crooks in Clover
Jean-Pierre Melville
Director
1 film together
Notably Army of Shadows
Henri Verneuil
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sicilian Clan
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jean-Pierre Melville
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Army of ShadowsGeorges Lautner
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crooks in CloverLouis 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 GallowsHenri Verneuil
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 Sicilian ClanJulien Duvivier
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Marie-OctobreJacques 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 GrisbiJean Delannoy
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Maigret Sets a TrapSix 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
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
At the End of the Day
as Lino (archive footage) (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
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
At the End of the Day
as Lino (archive footage) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
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. Lino Ventura 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.
Modern Classic Performer
Awarded
Defining performances delivered inside the last twenty-five years, in films already being taught rather than merely remembered.
Crime Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in crime, 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
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
At the End of the Day
as Lino (archive footage) (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Maigret Sets a Trap
as Inspecteur Torrence
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Patrick Dewaere, My Hero
as Self (archive footage) - actor
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Army of Shadows
as Philippe Gerbier
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
At the End of the Day
as Lino (archive footage) (uncredited)
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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