Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#40274
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Raúl Arévalo 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.
Raúl Arévalo appears in 12 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Raúl. Pain and Glory is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Carlo Padial, Rodrigo Sorogoyen, Pedro Almodóvar and others, Raúl Arévalo 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.
Pain and Glory (2019) as Venancio Mallo · The Beloved (2026) as César · She Walks in Darkness (2025) as Arrieta
Career snapshot
Ranked #40274 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
12
2008–2026
Career length
18 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Pain and Glory
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Pain and Glory
Most frequent director
Pedro Almodóvar
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Pedro Almodóvar
Most common genre
Drama
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 45m
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
6.2
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. Che: Part Two — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2000s
6.6
Across 1 catalogue film 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. Che: Part Two.
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 | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 7.41 film | 6.54 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 5.83 films |
| Comedy | — | 5.71 film | 6.33 films |
| Romance | — | — | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2008Che: Part Two
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Captured Soldier #1.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2019Pain and Glory
7.4 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 Beloved
The current state of the argument, as César.
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 Venancio Mallo
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
as Jaime
Directed by Paco Caballero
as César
Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen
as Spanish Priest (Bernardo)
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
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
Venancio Mallo
Pain and Glory (2019)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Venancio Mallo gives Raúl Arévalo a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Jaime
More the Merrier (2021)
Performance score7.0
More the Merrier asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Jaime is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
César
The Beloved (2026)
Performance score6.9
The Beloved asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. César is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Arrieta
She Walks in Darkness (2025)
Performance score6.9
She Walks in Darkness asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Arrieta 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 Venancio Mallo
Start here. Pain and Glory is the clearest statement of what Raúl Arévalo does — accessible, 114 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Raúl 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.
More the Merrier (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Pain and Glory — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Room Next Door (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of More the Merrier but asks for a colder reading of it.
She Walks in Darkness (2025)
Keeps the drama register of The Room Next Door but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Beloved (2026)
Keeps the drama register of She Walks in Darkness but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Pedro Almodóvar
Director
3 films together
Notably Pain and Glory
Esteban Crespo
Director
1 film together
Notably Black Beach
Paco Caballero
Director
1 film together
Notably More the Merrier
Rodrigo Sorogoyen
Director
1 film together
Notably The Beloved
Carlo Padial
Director
1 film together
Notably Pizza Movies
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Pedro Almodóvar
Director
3 films together · 6.6 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Pain and GloryRodrigo Sorogoyen
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BelovedPaco Caballero
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
More the MerrierEsteban Crespo
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Black BeachCarlo Padial
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pizza MoviesSix 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
Pain and Glory
as Venancio Mallo
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
More the Merrier
as Jaime
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Pain and Glory
as Venancio Mallo
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Che: Part Two
as Captured Soldier #1
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Pain and Glory
as Venancio Mallo
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. Raúl Arévalo 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
6 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
Pain and Glory
as Venancio Mallo
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Pain and Glory
as Venancio Mallo
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
More the Merrier
as Jaime
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Wetland
as Ricardo
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Pain and Glory
as Venancio Mallo
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
More the Merrier
as Jaime
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Che: Part Two
as Captured Soldier #1
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Wetland
as Ricardo
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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