Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#36470
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
David Salles 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.
David Salles appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Nothing to Lose is the clearest case: a film rated 6.8 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 comedy, history, action. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Ludovic Bernard, François Uzan, Kheiron and others, David Salles 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.
Nothing to Lose (2026) as Campos · The Family (2013) as Bad Guy - Giovanni · A Very Bad Friend (2019) as Santi
Career snapshot
Ranked #36470 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
2013–2026
Career length
13 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.8
Nothing to Lose
Average Nutevio score
4.5
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.8
Nothing to Lose
Most frequent director
Ludovic Bernard
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Ludovic Bernard
Most common genre
Comedy
14 titles
Average runtime
1h 22m
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
5.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. All the Gods in the Sky, Venice Calling, Walter — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
5.6
Across 9 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.6
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. All the Gods in the Sky, Venice Calling, Walter.
Most productive era
2010s
9 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 | 5.83 films | 3.42 films |
| Action | 5.92 films | 6.22 films |
| Comedy | 5.58 films | 2.66 films |
| Crime | 5.92 films | 0.01 film |
| Horror | 5.71 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2013The Family
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Bad Guy - Giovanni.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2026Nothing to Lose
6.8 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. The current state of the argument, as Campos.
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.
16 of 16 films
as Campos
Directed by Unknown
Directed by Ludovic Bernard
as Le Bourreau
Directed by François Uzan
as Denis, the buyer
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
Campos
Nothing to Lose (2026)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Campos gives David Salles a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Avis de tempête
Avis de tempête (2026)
Performance score6.5
Avis de tempête asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. The role is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Le Bourreau
Family Pack (2024)
Performance score6.5
Family Pack asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Le Bourreau is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Denis, the buyer
Open Season (2023)
Performance score6.5
Open Season asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Denis, the buyer 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 Campos
Start here. Nothing to Lose is the clearest statement of what David Salles does — accessible, 102 minutes, and rated 6.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet David 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.
This Other Winter (2021)
Same director as Nothing to Lose, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Open Season (2023)
Same director as This Other Winter, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Family Pack (2024)
Keeps the comedy register of Open Season but asks for a colder reading of it.
Avis de tempête (2026)
Keeps the comedy register of Family Pack but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Family
Jean-Marie Poiré
Director
1 film together
Notably The Visitors: Bastille Day
Franck Gastambide
Director
1 film together
Notably Taxi 5
Mohamed Hamidi
Director
1 film together
Notably New Biz in the Hood
Kheiron
Director
1 film together
Notably Brutus vs Cesar
François Uzan
Director
1 film together
Notably Family Pack
Ludovic Bernard
Director
1 film together
Notably Avis de tempête
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The FamilyMohamed Hamidi
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New Biz in the HoodFrançois Uzan
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Family PackFranck Gastambide
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Taxi 5Jean-Marie Poiré
Director
1 film together · 4.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Visitors: Bastille DayKheiron
Director
1 film together · 4.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Brutus vs CesarLudovic Bernard
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Avis de tempêteSix 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
Nothing to Lose
as Campos
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Family Pack
as Le Bourreau
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Nothing to Lose
as Campos
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Family
as Bad Guy - Giovanni
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Nothing to Lose
as Campos
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. David Salles 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
14 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
Nothing to Lose
as Campos
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Family
as Bad Guy - Giovanni
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Family Pack
as Le Bourreau
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Brand New Adventures of Aladdin
as Chief Genie
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Nothing to Lose
as Campos
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Family Pack
as Le Bourreau
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Family Pack
as Le Bourreau
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
A Very Bad Friend
as Santi
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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