Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#34627
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Nasser Faris works on quiet performance 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.
Nasser Faris appears in 4 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Nasser. House of Sand and Fog is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, transformation, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, crime, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Robert Smigel, David Mamet, Nasser Faris 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.
House of Sand and Fog (2003) as Wedding Guest · Ocean's Twelve (2004) as Frank's Jail Mate · Spartan (2004) as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Career snapshot
Ranked #34627 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
4
2003–2018
Career length
15 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
House of Sand and Fog
Average Nutevio score
6.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
House of Sand and Fog
Most frequent director
Robert Smigel
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Robert Smigel
Most common genre
Crime
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 57m
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
6.3
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
6.7 average MV
The 2000s are where the work and the material meet. Ocean's Twelve, Spartan, House of Sand and Fog — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.7
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.6
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. Ocean's Twelve, Spartan, House of Sand and Fog.
Most productive era
2000s
3 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.72 films | — |
| Action | 6.31 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.52 films | — |
| Comedy | — | 5.81 film |
| Crime | 6.52 films | — |
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 Wedding Guest. 7.0 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
2018The Week Of
The current state of the argument, as Hanan.
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.
4 of 4 films
as Frank's Jail Mate
Directed by Unknown
as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Directed by David Mamet
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
Wedding Guest
House of Sand and Fog (2003)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Wedding Guest gives Nasser Faris a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Frank's Jail Mate
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Performance score6.6
Ocean's Twelve asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frank's Jail Mate is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Hanan
The Week Of (2018)
Performance score6.5
The Week Of asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Hanan is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Spartan (2004)
Performance score6.5
Spartan asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Customs Official (as Al Faris) 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 Wedding Guest
Start here. House of Sand and Fog is the clearest statement of what Nasser Faris does — accessible, 126 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Nasser 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.
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Same director as House of Sand and Fog, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Spartan (2004)
Keeps the crime register of Ocean's Twelve but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Week Of (2018)
A deliberate change of key after Spartan — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Mamet
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpartanRobert Smigel
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Week OfSix 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
House of Sand and Fog
as Wedding Guest
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
House of Sand and Fog
as Wedding Guest
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
House of Sand and Fog
as Wedding Guest
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Spartan
as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
House of Sand and Fog
as Wedding Guest
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. Nasser Faris 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.
Crime Legend
Awarded
2 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
House of Sand and Fog
as Wedding Guest
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ocean's Twelve
as Frank's Jail Mate
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
House of Sand and Fog
as Wedding Guest
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Spartan
as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spartan
as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Spartan
as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Spartan
as Customs Official (as Al Faris)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Week Of
as Hanan
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Zach Grenier
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Richmond Arquette
Built a career in the same territory: crime and mystery
Have your say
Community
Which Nasser Faris 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
