Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#8704
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Pierfrancesco Favino 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.
Pierfrancesco Favino appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Pierfrancesco. We Are Cinema is the clearest case: a film rated 9.5 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 documentary, drama, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Alexandre de La Patellière, Pablo Larraín, Gabriele Salvatores and others, Pierfrancesco Favino 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.
We Are Cinema (2021) as Self (archive footage) · The Count of Monte Cristo (2024) as Abbé Faria · Rush (2013) as Clay Regazzoni
Career snapshot
Ranked #8704 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2006–2026
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
9.5
We Are Cinema
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
9.5
We Are Cinema
Most frequent director
Ron Howard
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Ron Howard
Most common genre
Drama
12 titles
Average runtime
2h 6m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
2010s
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Traitor, The Catcher Was a Spy, My Cousin Rachel — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.8
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. Angels & Demons, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Miracle at St. Anna.
Most productive era
2020s
12 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 | 6.11 film | 6.84 films | 6.87 films |
| Action | — | 7.42 films | 7.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.71 film | 6.92 films | 7.11 film |
| Comedy | 6.81 film | — | 6.82 films |
| Crime | — | 7.61 film | 7.11 film |
| Romance | — | 5.71 film | 6.82 films |
| Horror | — | 7.11 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Christopher Columbus.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2021We Are Cinema
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 9.5 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
2026Marco Bellocchio - La porta della realtà
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Self (archive footage)
Directed by Unknown
as Tommaso Buscetta
Directed by Marco Bellocchio
as Domenico Garofalo
Directed by Gabriele Salvatores
as Abbé Faria
Directed by Alexandre de La Patellière
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 (archive footage)
We Are Cinema (2021)
Performance score9.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self (archive footage) gives Pierfrancesco Favino a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tommaso Buscetta
The Traitor (2019)
Performance score8.1
The Traitor asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tommaso Buscetta is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Domenico Garofalo
Naples to New York (2024)
Performance score7.8
Naples to New York asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Domenico Garofalo is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Abbé Faria
The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)
Performance score7.7
The Count of Monte Cristo asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Abbé Faria 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)
Start here. We Are Cinema is the clearest statement of what Pierfrancesco Favino does — accessible, 71 minutes, and rated 9.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Pierfrancesco 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 Traitor (2019)
A deliberate change of key after We Are Cinema — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Last Night of Amore (2023)
Keeps the crime register of The Traitor but asks for a colder reading of it.
Naples to New York (2024)
A deliberate change of key after Last Night of Amore — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Count of Monte Cristo (2024)
Keeps the adventure register of Naples to New York but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ron Howard
Director
2 films together
Notably Rush
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Night at the Museum
Spike Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Miracle at St. Anna
Andrew Adamson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Marc Forster
Director
1 film together
Notably World War Z
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably My Cousin Rachel
Ben Lewin
Director
1 film together
Notably The Catcher Was a Spy
Marco Bellocchio
Director
1 film together
Notably The Traitor
Gabriele Muccino
Director
1 film together
Notably The Best Years
Francesca Archibugi
Director
1 film together
Notably The Hummingbird
Gabriele Salvatores
Director
1 film together
Notably Naples to New York
Pablo Larraín
Director
1 film together
Notably Maria
Alexandre de La Patellière
Director
1 film together
Notably The Count of Monte Cristo
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ron Howard
Director
2 films together · 7.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
RushAlexandre de La Patellière
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Count of Monte CristoMarco Bellocchio
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The TraitorGabriele Salvatores
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Naples to New YorkMarc Forster
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
World War ZFrancesca Archibugi
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The HummingbirdGabriele Muccino
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Best YearsAndrew Adamson
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince CaspianShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night at the MuseumPablo Larraín
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MariaBen Lewin
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 Catcher Was a SpySpike Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Miracle at St. AnnaRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
My Cousin RachelSix 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
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Maria
as Ferruccio
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
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. Pierfrancesco Favino 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
12 catalogue titles in drama, 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
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Maria
as Ferruccio
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Angels & Demons
as Inspector Olivetti
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
We Are Cinema
as Self (archive footage)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Count of Monte Cristo
as Abbé Faria
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Best Years
as Giulio Ristuccia
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
World War Z
as W.H.O. Doctor
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and history
Have your say
Community
Which Pierfrancesco Favino 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
