Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#30505
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Muhammad Ali represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Muhammad is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Muhammad Ali appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Muhammad. When We Were Kings is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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 music, documentary, history. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Nelson George, Jeffrey Schwarz, Spike Lee and others, Muhammad Ali 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.
When We Were Kings (1996) as Self · American Made (2017) as Self (archive footage) (uncredited) · Pelé (2021) as Self (archive Footage)
Career snapshot
Ranked #30505 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
1996–2024
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
When We Were Kings
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
Most frequent director
Nelson George
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Nelson George
Most common genre
Documentary
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 39m
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
1990s
7.1 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. When We Were Kings — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
7.6
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. When We Were Kings.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 7.01 film | 6.51 film |
| Comedy | — | 7.01 film | — |
| Crime | — | 7.01 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Self. 7.1 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
2024Beatles '64
The current state of the argument, as Self (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.
12 of 12 films
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Directed by Doug Liman
as Self - Professional Boxer (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
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
When We Were Kings (1996)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Muhammad Ali a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
American Made (2017)
Performance score6.9
American Made asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self (archive footage) (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self (archive Footage)
Pelé (2021)
Performance score6.8
Pelé 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 movie#4
Self - Professional Boxer (archive footage)
Untold: Deal with the Devil (2021)
Performance score6.6
Untold: Deal with the Devil asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self - Professional Boxer (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
Start here. When We Were Kings is the clearest statement of what Muhammad Ali does — accessible, 89 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Muhammad 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.
American Made (2017)
A deliberate change of key after When We Were Kings — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Pelé (2021)
A deliberate change of key after American Made — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Untold: Deal with the Devil (2021)
Same director as Pelé, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (2021)
Same director as Untold: Deal with the Devil, 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.
Leon Gast
Director
1 film together
Notably When We Were Kings
Doug Liman
Director
1 film together
Notably American Made
Simon George
Director
1 film together
Notably Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Da 5 Bloods
Jeffrey Schwarz
Director
1 film together
Notably Boulevard! A Hollywood Story
Nelson George
Director
1 film together
Notably Say Hey, Willie Mays!
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Leon Gast
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
When We Were KingsDoug Liman
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American MadeSpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Da 5 BloodsSimon George
Director
1 film together · 6.5 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 ListonJeffrey Schwarz
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Boulevard! A Hollywood StoryNelson George
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Say Hey, Willie Mays!Six 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
American Made
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Beatles '64
as Self (archive footage)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
When We Were Kings
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Da 5 Bloods
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
When We Were Kings
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. Muhammad Ali 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
28 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.
Documentary Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in documentary, 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
When We Were Kings
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
American Made
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Beatles '64
as Self (archive footage)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
American Made
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
When We Were Kings
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
When We Were Kings
as Self
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
American Made
as Self (archive footage) (uncredited)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Say Hey, Willie Mays!
as Self (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
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Reference
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