Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18036
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Mousa Kraish 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.
Mousa Kraish appears in 9 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mousa. Moon is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, drama, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Hailey Benton Gates, Toy Lei, Chris Morris and others, Mousa Kraish 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.
Moon (2023) as Alex · Superbad (2007) as Billy Baybridge · Munich (2005) as Badran - Mohammed Safady
Career snapshot
Ranked #18036 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
9
2005–2025
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Moon
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.5
Moon
Most frequent director
Hailey Benton Gates
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Hailey Benton Gates
Most common genre
Comedy
5 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
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
6.6
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
7.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Atropia, Moon — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2000s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Fast & Furious, The Day the Earth Stood Still, You Don't Mess with the Zohan.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.42 films | — | 7.32 films |
| Action | 6.22 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.53 films | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.62 films | 6.02 films | 6.01 film |
| Crime | 6.71 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2005Munich
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Badran - Mohammed Safady.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Moon
8.5 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
2025Atropia
The current state of the argument, as Ray.
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.
9 of 9 films
as Billy Baybridge
Directed by Greg Mottola
as Badran - Mohammed Safady
Directed by Steven Spielberg
as Silvia Driver
Directed by Justin Lin
as Ray
Directed by Hailey Benton Gates
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
Alex
Moon (2023)
Performance score8.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Alex gives Mousa Kraish a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Billy Baybridge
Superbad (2007)
Performance score7.2
Superbad asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Billy Baybridge is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Badran - Mohammed Safady
Munich (2005)
Performance score7.0
Munich asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Badran - Mohammed Safady is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Silvia Driver
Fast & Furious (2009)
Performance score6.6
Fast & Furious asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Silvia Driver 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 Alex
Start here. Moon is the clearest statement of what Mousa Kraish does — accessible, 10 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mousa 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.
Munich (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Moon but asks for a colder reading of it.
Superbad (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Munich — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Fast & Furious (2009)
A deliberate change of key after Superbad — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Atropia (2025)
A deliberate change of key after Fast & Furious — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Steven Spielberg
Director
1 film together
Notably Munich
Greg Mottola
Director
1 film together
Notably Superbad
Dennis Dugan
Director
1 film together
Notably You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Scott Derrickson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Day the Earth Stood Still
Justin Lin
Director
1 film together
Notably Fast & Furious
Larry Charles
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dictator
Chris Morris
Director
1 film together
Notably The Day Shall Come
Toy Lei
Director
1 film together
Notably Moon
Hailey Benton Gates
Director
1 film together
Notably Atropia
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Toy Lei
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MoonGreg Mottola
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SuperbadSteven Spielberg
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MunichJustin Lin
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fast & FuriousLarry Charles
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The DictatorHailey Benton Gates
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AtropiaChris Morris
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Day Shall ComeScott Derrickson
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Day the Earth Stood StillDennis Dugan
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You Don't Mess with the ZohanSix 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
Superbad
as Billy Baybridge
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Munich
as Badran - Mohammed Safady
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Moon
as Alex
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Munich
as Badran - Mohammed Safady
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Moon
as Alex
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. Mousa Kraish 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
20 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
5 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
Moon
as Alex
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Moon
as Alex
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Munich
as Badran - Mohammed Safady
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fast & Furious
as Silvia Driver
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Moon
as Alex
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
as Bashir
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Munich
as Badran - Mohammed Safady
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Superbad
as Billy Baybridge
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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