Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#56712
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
Samir Guesmi 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.
Samir Guesmi appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Samir. The ABCs of Love is the clearest case: a film rated 6.3 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, quiet performance, transformation. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for drama, comedy, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Sylvie Verheyde, Samir Guesmi, Noémie Saglio, Samir Guesmi 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 ABCs of Love (2020) as François Biriani · Animal Totem (2025) as Darius · Madame Claude (2021) as René la Canne
Career snapshot
Ranked #56712 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
2017–2026
Career length
9 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
6.3
The ABCs of Love
Average Nutevio score
3.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
6.3
The ABCs of Love
Most frequent director
Sylvie Verheyde
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Sylvie Verheyde
Most common genre
Drama
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 11m
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
6.1
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
5.5 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Claire Darling, Ismael's Ghosts — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
5.5
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
5.5
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. Claire Darling, Ismael's Ghosts.
Most productive era
2020s
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 | 5.52 films | 2.86 films |
| Thriller | 5.51 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 4.03 films |
| Crime | — | 5.71 film |
| Romance | 5.51 film | 5.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2017Ismael's Ghosts
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Le médecin.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2020The ABCs of Love
6.3 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
2026Dao
The current state of the argument, as Slimane.
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.
11 of 11 films
as François Biriani
Directed by Noémie Saglio
Directed by Unknown
as La voix off
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
François Biriani
The ABCs of Love (2020)
Performance score6.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. François Biriani gives Samir Guesmi a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Darius
Animal Totem (2025)
Performance score6.6
Animal Totem asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Darius is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Slimane
Dao (2026)
Performance score6.5
Dao asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Slimane is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Que les meilleurs gagnent
Que les meilleurs gagnent (2024)
Performance score6.5
Que les meilleurs gagnent 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 movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as François Biriani
Start here. The ABCs of Love is the clearest statement of what Samir Guesmi does — accessible, 89 minutes, and rated 6.3 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Samir 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.
Talk Chaud (2023)
A deliberate change of key after The ABCs of Love — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Que les meilleurs gagnent (2024)
Same director as Talk Chaud, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Animal Totem (2025)
Same director as Que les meilleurs gagnent, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Dao (2026)
Same director as Animal Totem, 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.
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Noémie Saglio
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The ABCs of LoveSylvie Verheyde
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Madame ClaudeSamir Guesmi
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
IbrahimSix 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 ABCs of Love
as François Biriani
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Madame Claude
as René la Canne
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 ABCs of Love
as François Biriani
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Madame Claude
as René la Canne
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The ABCs of Love
as François Biriani
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. Samir Guesmi 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
8 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 ABCs of Love
as François Biriani
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ismael's Ghosts
as Le médecin
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Madame Claude
as René la Canne
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ismael's Ghosts
as Le médecin
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The ABCs of Love
as François Biriani
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Claire Darling
as Amir
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Madame Claude
as René la Canne
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Animal Totem
as Darius
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Bonnie Hunt
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Morgan Freeman
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Zach Grenier
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Have your say
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Reference
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