Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#57162
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Susana Abaitua 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.
Susana Abaitua appears in 15 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Susana. Ferrotipos is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 romance, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Daniel Guzmán, Ángeles González-Sinde, Alauda Ruiz de Azúa and others, Susana Abaitua 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.
Ferrotipos (2020) · The Dinner Guest (2024) as Icíar · Crazy About Her (2021) as Carla
Career snapshot
Ranked #57162 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
15
2019–2026
Career length
7 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Ferrotipos
Average Nutevio score
5.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Ferrotipos
Most frequent director
Daniel Guzmán
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Daniel Guzmán
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 18m
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
2010s
5.8 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. 4L, 70 Big Ones — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
5.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. 4L, 70 Big Ones.
Most productive era
2020s
13 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 5.91 film | 6.27 films |
| Action | 5.71 film | — |
| Thriller | — | 5.63 films |
| Comedy | 5.91 film | 3.37 films |
| Crime | 5.71 film | — |
| Romance | — | 5.04 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
20194L
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Ely.
First Nutevio masterpiece · Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020Ferrotipos
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches. 10.0 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
2026Ownerships
The current state of the argument, as Vera.
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.
15 of 15 films
as Icíar
Directed by Ángeles González-Sinde
as Carla
Directed by Dani de la Orden
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
Ferrotipos
Ferrotipos (2020)
Performance score9.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. The role gives Susana Abaitua a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Icíar
The Dinner Guest (2024)
Performance score8.3
The Dinner Guest asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Icíar is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Carla
Crazy About Her (2021)
Performance score7.6
Crazy About Her asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Carla is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Amaia
She Walks in Darkness (2025)
Performance score7.4
She Walks in Darkness asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Amaia 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
Start here. Ferrotipos is the clearest statement of what Susana Abaitua does — accessible, 14 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Susana 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.
Crazy About Her (2021)
A deliberate change of key after Ferrotipos — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Staring at Strangers (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Crazy About Her — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Dinner Guest (2024)
Keeps the drama register of Staring at Strangers but asks for a colder reading of it.
She Walks in Darkness (2025)
Keeps the drama register of The Dinner Guest but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Koldo Serra
Director
1 film together
Notably 70 Big Ones
Null García
Director
1 film together
Notably Ferrotipos
Dani de la Orden
Director
1 film together
Notably Crazy About Her
Félix Viscarret
Director
1 film together
Notably Staring at Strangers
Alauda Ruiz de Azúa
Director
1 film together
Notably Love at First Kiss
Ángeles González-Sinde
Director
1 film together
Notably The Dinner Guest
Daniel Guzmán
Director
1 film together
Notably The Redemption
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Null García
Director
1 film together · 10.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
FerrotiposÁngeles González-Sinde
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Dinner GuestDani de la Orden
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crazy About HerFélix Viscarret
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Staring at StrangersDaniel Guzmán
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The RedemptionAlauda Ruiz de Azúa
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love at First KissKoldo Serra
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
70 Big OnesSix 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
Ferrotipos
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Ferrotipos
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ferrotipos
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
70 Big Ones
as Candela
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ferrotipos
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. Susana Abaitua 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
8 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
Ferrotipos
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ferrotipos
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ferrotipos
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ferrotipos
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Ferrotipos
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
70 Big Ones
as Candela
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
4L
as Ely
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Dinner Guest
as Icíar
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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