Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#19875
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Larry Fessenden represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Larry is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Larry Fessenden appears in 14 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Larry. Tales of the Uncanny is the clearest case: a film rated 7.0 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 horror, thriller, mystery. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Travis Stevens, Philip Gelatt, Jim Jarmusch and others, Larry Fessenden 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.
Tales of the Uncanny (2020) as Self · Broken Flowers (2005) as Will · Good Boy (2025) as Grandpa
Career snapshot
Ranked #19875 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
14
1999–2025
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.0
Tales of the Uncanny
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.0
Tales of the Uncanny
Most frequent director
Jim Jarmusch
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Jim Jarmusch
Most common genre
Drama
9 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
1990s
6.6 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Bringing Out the Dead — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.6
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2000s
6.6
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1990s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Bringing Out the Dead.
Most productive era
2020s
6 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 | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.61 film | 6.62 films | 5.85 films | 5.31 film |
| Action | — | — | 6.11 film | 6.01 film |
| Thriller | — | — | — | 5.32 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.91 film | 6.02 films | — |
| Crime | — | 6.31 film | — | — |
| Romance | — | 6.91 film | 6.61 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | 5.52 films | 5.94 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Cokehead.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.0 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 Boy
The current state of the argument, as Grandpa.
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.
14 of 14 films
as Will
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
as Le premier rocker
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
Self
Tales of the Uncanny (2020)
Performance score6.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Larry Fessenden a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Grandpa
Good Boy (2025)
Performance score6.8
Good Boy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Grandpa is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Will
Broken Flowers (2005)
Performance score6.8
Broken Flowers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Will is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Le premier rocker
Chinese Puzzle (2013)
Performance score6.6
Chinese Puzzle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Le premier rocker 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 Self
Start here. Tales of the Uncanny is the clearest statement of what Larry Fessenden does — accessible, 104 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Larry 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.
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
A deliberate change of key after Tales of the Uncanny — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Broken Flowers (2005)
Keeps the drama register of Bringing Out the Dead but asks for a colder reading of it.
Chinese Puzzle (2013)
Keeps the romance register of Broken Flowers but asks for a colder reading of it.
Good Boy (2025)
Same director as Chinese Puzzle, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Jim Jarmusch
Director
2 films together
Notably Broken Flowers
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably Bringing Out the Dead
Steve Buscemi
Director
1 film together
Notably Animal Factory
Ti West
Director
1 film together
Notably In a Valley of Violence
Larry Fessenden
Director
1 film together
Notably Depraved
Philip Gelatt
Director
1 film together
Notably The Spine of Night
Travis Stevens
Director
1 film together
Notably Jakob's Wife
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jim Jarmusch
Director
2 films together · 6.2 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Broken FlowersMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Bringing Out the DeadSteve Buscemi
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Animal FactoryTi West
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In a Valley of ViolencePhilip Gelatt
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Spine of NightTravis Stevens
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jakob's WifeLarry Fessenden
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DepravedSix 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
Tales of the Uncanny
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Broken Flowers
as Will
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Broken Flowers
as Will
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Chinese Puzzle
as Le premier rocker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Tales of the Uncanny
as Self
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. Larry Fessenden 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
26 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
9 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Broken Flowers
as Will
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Good Boy
as Grandpa
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Broken Flowers
as Will
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Offseason
as H. Grierson
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
In a Valley of Violence
as Roy
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
In a Valley of Violence
as Roy
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Chinese Puzzle
as Le premier rocker
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Offseason
as H. Grierson
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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