Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3273
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Aziz Ansari 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.
Aziz Ansari appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Aziz. The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation is the clearest case: a film rated 8.0 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 comedy, fantasy, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Aziz Ansari, Loren Bouchard, Morgan Sackett and others, Aziz Ansari 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.
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation (2020) as Tom Haverford · A Parks and Recreation Special (2020) as Tom Haverford · Aziz Ansari: Right Now (2019) as Self
Career snapshot
Ranked #3273 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2006–2025
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.0
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
Most frequent director
Aziz Ansari
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Aziz Ansari
Most common genre
Comedy
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 30m
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
6.4
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
2020s
7.3 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Good Fortune, The Bob's Burgers Movie, A Parks and Recreation Special — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
7.3
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
7.3
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. I Love You, Man, Observe and Report, Funny People.
Most productive era
2010s
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 | 5.72 films | — | — |
| Action | — | 6.02 films | — |
| Comedy | 5.95 films | 6.37 films | 7.13 films |
| Crime | 5.41 film | — | 6.91 film |
| Romance | 6.02 films | 6.51 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Classmate.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
8.0 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
2025Good Fortune
The current state of the argument, as Arj / Delivery Robots (voice).
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.
17 of 17 films
as Self
Directed by Spike Jonze
as Arj / Delivery Robots (voice)
Directed by Aziz Ansari
as Darryl (voice)
Directed by Loren Bouchard
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
Tom Haverford
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation (2020)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Tom Haverford gives Aziz Ansari a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tom Haverford
A Parks and Recreation Special (2020)
Performance score7.7
A Parks and Recreation Special asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tom Haverford is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Aziz Ansari: Right Now (2019)
Performance score7.7
Aziz Ansari: Right Now asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Self is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Arj / Delivery Robots (voice)
Good Fortune (2025)
Performance score7.3
Good Fortune asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Arj / Delivery Robots (voice) 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 Tom Haverford
Start here. The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation is the clearest statement of what Aziz Ansari does — accessible, 20 minutes, and rated 8.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Aziz 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.
Aziz Ansari: Right Now (2019)
Keeps the documentary register of The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation but asks for a colder reading of it.
A Parks and Recreation Special (2020)
Keeps the comedy register of Aziz Ansari: Right Now but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Bob's Burgers Movie (2022)
Keeps the comedy register of A Parks and Recreation Special but asks for a colder reading of it.
Good Fortune (2025)
Keeps the comedy register of The Bob's Burgers Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Todd Phillips
Director
1 film together
Notably School for Scoundrels
Judd Apatow
Director
1 film together
Notably Funny People
Jody Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Observe and Report
John Hamburg
Director
1 film together
Notably I Love You, Man
Nicholas Stoller
Director
1 film together
Notably Get Him to the Greek
Mark Mylod
Director
1 film together
Notably What's Your Number?
Ruben Fleischer
Director
1 film together
Notably 30 Minutes or Less
Chris Wedge
Director
1 film together
Notably Epic
Evan Goldberg
Director
1 film together
Notably This Is the End
Spike Jonze
Director
1 film together
Notably Aziz Ansari: Right Now
Morgan Sackett
Director
1 film together
Notably A Parks and Recreation Special
Loren Bouchard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bob's Burgers Movie
Aziz Ansari
Director
1 film together
Notably Good Fortune
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Morgan Sackett
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
A Parks and Recreation SpecialSpike Jonze
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Aziz Ansari: Right NowAziz Ansari
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Good FortuneLoren Bouchard
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 Bob's Burgers MovieChris Wedge
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
EpicJohn Hamburg
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
I Love You, ManMark Mylod
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
What's Your Number?Evan Goldberg
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
This Is the EndNicholas Stoller
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Get Him to the GreekJudd Apatow
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Funny PeopleRuben Fleischer
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
30 Minutes or LessTodd Phillips
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
School for ScoundrelsJody Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Observe and ReportSix 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
The Bob's Burgers Movie
as Darryl (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Epic
as Mub (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
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
as Tom Haverford
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
What's Your Number?
as Jay
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
as Tom Haverford
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. Aziz Ansari 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
15 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
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
as Tom Haverford
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Bob's Burgers Movie
as Darryl (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Epic
as Mub (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Bob's Burgers Movie
as Darryl (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Paley Center Salutes Parks and Recreation
as Tom Haverford
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
30 Minutes or Less
as Chet
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Observe and Report
as Saddamn
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Rocker
as Aziz
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
Community
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Reference
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