Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3183
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Zachary Levi 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.
Zachary Levi appears in 23 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Zachary. Sarah's Oil is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 romance, action, western. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Cyrus Nowrasteh, Jon Gunn, Joe Carnahan and others, Zachary Levi 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.
Sarah's Oil (2025) as Bert Smith · Thor: Ragnarok (2017) as Fandral · Tangled (2010) as Flynn Rider (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #3183 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
23
2006–2026
Career length
20 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Sarah's Oil
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Sarah's Oil
Most frequent director
Cyrus Nowrasteh
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Cyrus Nowrasteh
Most common genre
Comedy
13 titles
Average runtime
1h 28m
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
2010s
6.7 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Blood Fest, Office Uprising, Thor: Ragnarok — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.7
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
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. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Big Momma's House 2.
Most productive era
2020s
14 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 | — | — | 7.36 films |
| Action | — | 6.63 films | 2.13 films |
| Thriller | — | — | 4.63 films |
| Comedy | 5.82 films | 6.55 films | 6.56 films |
| Crime | 5.81 film | 7.21 film | — |
| Romance | — | — | 0.01 film |
| Horror | — | 5.32 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Kevin Keneally.
Highest rated performance
2010Tangled
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026The Fix
The current state of the argument, as Tucker.
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.
23 of 23 films
as Bert Smith
Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh
as Flynn Rider (voice)
Directed by Byron Howard
as Unnamed man
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.
Loading credits…
The defining work
#1
Scott
The Unbreakable Boy (2025)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Scott gives Zachary Levi a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Bert Smith
Sarah's Oil (2025)
Performance score8.1
Sarah's Oil asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bert Smith is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Flynn Rider (voice)
Tangled (2010)
Performance score8.1
Tangled asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Flynn Rider (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Kurt Warner
American Underdog (2021)
Performance score7.7
American Underdog asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Kurt Warner 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 Scott
Start here. The Unbreakable Boy is the clearest statement of what Zachary Levi does — accessible, 108 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Zachary 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.
Tangled (2010)
Keeps the family register of The Unbreakable Boy but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Statement (2020)
A deliberate change of key after Tangled — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
American Underdog (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Statement — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Sarah's Oil (2025)
Keeps the drama register of American Underdog but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
John Whitesell
Director
1 film together
Notably Big Momma's House 2
Betty Thomas
Director
1 film together
Notably Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
Byron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Tangled
Alan Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Thor: The Dark World
Steve Franks
Director
1 film together
Notably Psych: The Movie
Stephen Sandoval
Director
1 film together
Notably Tangled: Before Ever After
Taika Waititi
Director
1 film together
Notably Thor: Ragnarok
Lin Oeding
Director
1 film together
Notably Office Uprising
Kevin Macdonald
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mauritanian
Jon Erwin
Director
1 film together
Notably American Underdog
Richard Linklater
Director
1 film together
Notably Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood
Matt Danner
Director
1 film together
Notably Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again
Robert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together
Notably Spy Kids: Armageddon
Carlos Saldanha
Director
1 film together
Notably Harold and the Purple Crayon
Joe Carnahan
Director
1 film together
Notably Not Without Hope
Jon Gunn
Director
1 film together
Notably The Unbreakable Boy
Cyrus Nowrasteh
Director
1 film together
Notably Sarah's Oil
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Cyrus Nowrasteh
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sarah's OilTaika Waititi
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thor: RagnarokByron Howard
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TangledJon Gunn
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 Unbreakable BoyKevin Macdonald
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MauritanianSteve Franks
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Psych: The MovieJon Erwin
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
American UnderdogRichard Linklater
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Apollo 10½: A Space Age ChildhoodStephen Sandoval
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tangled: Before Ever AfterAlan Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Thor: The Dark WorldCarlos Saldanha
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Harold and the Purple CrayonJoe Carnahan
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Not Without HopeMatt Danner
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises AgainRobert Rodriguez
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spy Kids: ArmageddonJohn Whitesell
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big Momma's House 2Betty Thomas
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The SqueakquelLin Oeding
Director
1 film together · 5.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Office UprisingSix 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
Thor: Ragnarok
as Fandral
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Tangled
as Flynn Rider (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Tangled
as Flynn Rider (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Thor: Ragnarok
as Fandral
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Unbreakable Boy
as Scott
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. Zachary Levi 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
13 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
Psych: The Movie
as Thin White Duke
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Psych: The Movie
as Thin White Duke
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Tangled
as Flynn Rider (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Psych: The Movie
as Thin White Duke
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Thor: Ragnarok
as Fandral
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Thor: The Dark World
as Fandral
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
as Toby
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Thor: Ragnarok
as Fandral
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: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
Which Zachary Levi 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
