Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4360
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Mike Tyson represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 27 years in, and Mike is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mike Tyson appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mike. Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston 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 comedy, animation, documentary. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Franck Gastambide, Jared Cohn, Stanley Nelson and others, Mike Tyson 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.
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston (2019) as Self · AEW Double or Nothing 2020 (2020) as Self · The Hangover (2009) as Mike Tyson
Career snapshot
Ranked #4360 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
1999–2026
Career length
27 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
Most frequent director
Todd Phillips
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Todd Phillips
Most common genre
Comedy
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
6.4
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
2000s
6.6 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. The Hangover, Rocky Balboa, Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.5
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. Play It to the Bone.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 5.41 film | 6.91 film | 5.82 films | 7.12 films |
| Action | — | — | 5.92 films | 5.94 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 6.41 film | 6.21 film |
| Comedy | 5.41 film | 6.42 films | 6.35 films | 2.82 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | 6.11 film |
| Romance | — | — | — | 4.21 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Mike Tyson.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
8.0 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
2026The Robot Chicken [adult swim] 25th Anniversary Special
The current state of the argument, as Mike Tyson (voice).
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.
22 of 22 films
as Mike Tyson
Directed by Todd Phillips
as Self - Heavyweight Boxer
Directed by Unknown
as Rick
Directed by Raouf Abdul Aziz
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
Self
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston (2019)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Mike Tyson a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self
AEW Double or Nothing 2020 (2020)
Performance score7.9
AEW Double or Nothing 2020 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Mike Tyson
The Hangover (2009)
Performance score7.4
The Hangover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mike Tyson is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self - Heavyweight Boxer
Untold: Deal with the Devil (2021)
Performance score7.3
Untold: Deal with the Devil asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self - Heavyweight Boxer 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
Start here. Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston is the clearest statement of what Mike Tyson does — accessible, 90 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mike 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 Hangover (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Pharaoh's War (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Hangover — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
AEW Double or Nothing 2020 (2020)
Keeps the action register of Pharaoh's War but asks for a colder reading of it.
Untold: Deal with the Devil (2021)
Same director as AEW Double or Nothing 2020, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Todd Phillips
Director
2 films together
Notably The Hangover
Ron Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably Play It to the Bone
Simon Wincer
Director
1 film together
Notably Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
Sylvester Stallone
Director
1 film together
Notably Rocky Balboa
Peter Segal
Director
1 film together
Notably Grudge Match
Doug Ellin
Director
1 film together
Notably Entourage
Jake Szymanski
Director
1 film together
Notably Tour de Pharmacy
Raouf Abdul Aziz
Director
1 film together
Notably Pharaoh's War
Tyler Perry
Director
1 film together
Notably A Madea Family Funeral
Simon George
Director
1 film together
Notably Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
Nas
Director
1 film together
Notably You're Watching Video Music Box
Stanley Nelson
Director
1 film together
Notably Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy
Jared Cohn
Director
1 film together
Notably Vendetta
Franck Gastambide
Director
1 film together
Notably Medellin
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Todd Phillips
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 HangoverSimon George
Director
1 film together · 8.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny ListonSylvester Stallone
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rocky BalboaStanley Nelson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & ConspiracyJake Szymanski
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tour de PharmacyNas
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You're Watching Video Music BoxRaouf Abdul Aziz
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pharaoh's WarDoug Ellin
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EntourageJared Cohn
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VendettaPeter Segal
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Grudge MatchTyler Perry
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Madea Family FuneralFranck Gastambide
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MedellinRon Shelton
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Play It to the BoneSimon Wincer
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crocodile Dundee in Los AngelesSix 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
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Rocky Balboa
as Mike Tyson
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
You're Watching Video Music Box
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
as Self
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. Mike Tyson 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
27 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
10 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
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
AEW Double or Nothing 2020
as Self
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Rocky Balboa
as Mike Tyson
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Vendetta
as Roach
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
AEW Double or Nothing 2020
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
AEW Double or Nothing 2020
as Self
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Entourage
as Mike Tyson
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Hangover
as Mike Tyson
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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Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
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Reference
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