Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#26046
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Mattia Sbragia represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 28 years in, and Mattia is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Mattia Sbragia appears in 6 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Mattia. The Passion of the Christ is the clearest case: a film rated 7.6 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are quiet performance, versatility, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for action, comedy, drama. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Catherine Hardwicke, Mel Gibson, Brian Helgeland and others, Mattia Sbragia 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 Passion of the Christ (2004) as Caifás · Ocean's Twelve (2004) as Commissario Giordano · Only You (1994) as Alitalia Pilot
Career snapshot
Ranked #26046 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
6
1994–2022
Career length
28 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
The Passion of the Christ
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
The Passion of the Christ
Most frequent director
Catherine Hardwicke
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Catherine Hardwicke
Most common genre
Drama
4 titles
Average runtime
1h 52m
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
6.7 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Only You — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
6.7
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.7
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. Only You.
Most productive era
2000s
4 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 | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 6.63 films | 4.21 film |
| Action | — | — | 4.21 film |
| Thriller | — | 6.33 films | — |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | — | 4.21 film |
| Crime | — | 6.62 films | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.12 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1994Only You
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Alitalia Pilot.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
7.6 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
The current state of the argument, as Fassano.
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 Major Pini
Directed by Tom Tykwer
as Commissario Giordano
Directed by Unknown
as Alitalia Pilot
Directed by Norman Jewison
as Fassano
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
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
Caifás
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Caifás gives Mattia Sbragia a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Major Pini
Heaven (2002)
Performance score6.7
Heaven asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Major Pini is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Commissario Giordano
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Performance score6.6
Ocean's Twelve asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Commissario Giordano is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Alitalia Pilot
Only You (1994)
Performance score6.6
Only You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alitalia Pilot 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 Caifás
Start here. The Passion of the Christ is the clearest statement of what Mattia Sbragia does — accessible, 127 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Mattia 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.
Only You (1994)
A deliberate change of key after The Passion of the Christ — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Heaven (2002)
Keeps the romance register of Only You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Ocean's Twelve (2004)
Keeps the crime register of Heaven but asks for a colder reading of it.
Tell It Like a Woman (2022)
A deliberate change of key after Ocean's Twelve — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Norman Jewison
Director
1 film together
Notably Only You
Tom Tykwer
Director
1 film together
Notably Heaven
Brian Helgeland
Director
1 film together
Notably The Order
Mel Gibson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Passion of the Christ
Catherine Hardwicke
Director
1 film together
Notably Tell It Like a Woman
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Mel Gibson
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Passion of the ChristNorman Jewison
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Only YouTom Tykwer
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HeavenBrian Helgeland
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The OrderCatherine Hardwicke
Director
1 film together · 4.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tell It Like a WomanSix 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 Passion of the Christ
as Caifás
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
The Order
as Apathetic Bishop
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 Passion of the Christ
as Caifás
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Ocean's Twelve
as Commissario Giordano
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Passion of the Christ
as Caifás
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. Mattia Sbragia 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
28 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
4 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
The Passion of the Christ
as Caifás
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ocean's Twelve
as Commissario Giordano
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
The Order
as Apathetic Bishop
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Order
as Apathetic Bishop
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Passion of the Christ
as Caifás
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tell It Like a Woman
as Fassano
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Heaven
as Major Pini
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Ocean's Twelve
as Commissario Giordano
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: drama and thriller
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: drama and fantasy
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: comedy and drama
Have your say
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Reference
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