Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#69978
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Venantino Venantini represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 47 years in, and Venantino is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Venantino Venantini appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Venantino. Crooks in Clover is the clearest case: a film rated 7.3 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 crime, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Richard Donner, Lucio Fulci, Gérard Oury and others, Venantino Venantini 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.
Crooks in Clover (1963) as Pascal · Delusions of Grandeur (1971) as Marquis del Basto · The Sucker (1965) as Mickey, "le Bègue"
Career snapshot
Ranked #69978 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1963–2010
Career length
47 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.3
Crooks in Clover
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Crooks in Clover
Most frequent director
Gérard Oury
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Gérard Oury
Most common genre
Comedy
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 50m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
7.0
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
1960s
7.2 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. The Sucker, Crooks in Clover — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.2
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1960s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Sucker, Crooks in Clover.
Most productive era
1960s
2 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 | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 2010s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | — | — | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 6.71 film |
| Comedy | 7.22 films | 7.11 film | 6.91 film | — |
| Crime | 7.22 films | — | — | 6.71 film |
| Horror | — | — | 6.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance
1963Crooks in Clover
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Pascal. 7.3 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
1965The Sucker
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
201022 Bullets
The current state of the argument, as Padovano.
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.
6 of 6 films
as Mickey, "le Bègue"
Directed by Gérard Oury
as Pascal
Directed by Georges Lautner
as Marquis del Basto
Directed by Gérard Oury
as Bishop's Secretary
Directed by Richard Donner
as Padovano
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.
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The defining work
#1
Mickey, "le Bègue"
The Sucker (1965)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Mickey, "le Bègue" gives Venantino Venantini a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Pascal
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Performance score7.2
Crooks in Clover asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pascal is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Marquis del Basto
Delusions of Grandeur (1971)
Performance score7.0
Delusions of Grandeur asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Marquis del Basto is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Bishop's Secretary
Ladyhawke (1985)
Performance score6.8
Ladyhawke asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bishop's Secretary 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 Mickey, "le Bègue"
Start here. The Sucker is the clearest statement of what Venantino Venantini does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Venantino 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.
Crooks in Clover (1963)
Keeps the comedy register of The Sucker but asks for a colder reading of it.
Delusions of Grandeur (1971)
Keeps the comedy register of Crooks in Clover but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ladyhawke (1985)
Keeps the comedy register of Delusions of Grandeur but asks for a colder reading of it.
22 Bullets (2010)
A deliberate change of key after Ladyhawke — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Gérard Oury
Director
2 films together
Notably Delusions of Grandeur
Georges Lautner
Director
1 film together
Notably Crooks in Clover
Lucio Fulci
Director
1 film together
Notably City of the Living Dead
Richard Donner
Director
1 film together
Notably Ladyhawke
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Gérard Oury
Director
2 films together · 7.1 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Delusions of GrandeurGeorges Lautner
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Crooks in CloverRichard Donner
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LadyhawkeLucio Fulci
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
City of the Living DeadSix 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
Crooks in Clover
as Pascal
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Ladyhawke
as Bishop's Secretary
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Crooks in Clover
as Pascal
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ladyhawke
as Bishop's Secretary
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Sucker
as Mickey, "le Bègue"
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. Venantino Venantini 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
47 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
4 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
City of the Living Dead
as Mr. Ross
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
22 Bullets
as Padovano
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Ladyhawke
as Bishop's Secretary
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
City of the Living Dead
as Mr. Ross
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Crooks in Clover
as Pascal
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Ladyhawke
as Bishop's Secretary
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
22 Bullets
as Padovano
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
22 Bullets
as Padovano
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Reference
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