Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#639
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Aaron Paul represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Aaron is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Aaron Paul appears in 21 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Aaron. Adele One Night Only is the clearest case: a film rated 7.8 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 action, thriller, science fiction. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Derrick Borte, James Watkins, Flying Lotus and others, Aaron Paul 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.
Adele One Night Only (2021) as Self · El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) as Jesse · Fathers and Daughters (2015) as Cameron
Career snapshot
Ranked #639 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
21
2000–2026
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.8
Adele One Night Only
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.8
Adele One Night Only
Most frequent director
Derrick Borte
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Derrick Borte
Most common genre
Thriller
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 36m
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
2010s
6.4 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. The Road to El Camino: Behind the Scenes of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, The Parts You Lose, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.4
Across 12 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.4
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. Mission: Impossible III, Whatever It Takes.
Most productive era
2010s
12 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 | 5.81 film | 6.57 films | 6.22 films |
| Action | 6.81 film | 6.24 films | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | 6.81 film | 6.26 films | 4.44 films |
| Comedy | 5.81 film | 6.32 films | 6.01 film |
| Crime | — | 6.53 films | — |
| Romance | 5.81 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.31 film | 2.62 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Floyd.
Career peak
2019El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
7.8 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2026Clayface
The current state of the argument.
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.
21 of 21 films
as Jesse
Directed by Vince Gilligan
as Self
Directed by Paul Dugdale
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
Jesse
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)
Performance score7.7
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Jesse gives Aaron Paul a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Self
Adele One Night Only (2021)
Performance score7.6
Adele One Night Only 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#3
Cameron
Fathers and Daughters (2015)
Performance score7.5
Fathers and Daughters asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cameron is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Self
The Road to El Camino: Behind the Scenes of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)
Performance score7.4
The Road to El Camino: Behind the Scenes of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie 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 movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Jesse
Start here. El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie is the clearest statement of what Aaron Paul does — accessible, 123 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Aaron 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.
Fathers and Daughters (2015)
Keeps the drama register of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Road to El Camino: Behind the Scenes of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Fathers and Daughters — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Parts You Lose (2019)
A deliberate change of key after The Road to El Camino: Behind the Scenes of El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Adele One Night Only (2021)
A deliberate change of key after The Parts You Lose — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Raynr
Director
1 film together
Notably Whatever It Takes
J.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together
Notably Mission: Impossible III
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Exodus: Gods and Kings
Gabriele Muccino
Director
1 film together
Notably Fathers and Daughters
Gavin Hood
Director
1 film together
Notably Eye in the Sky
John Hillcoat
Director
1 film together
Notably Triple 9
Zack Whedon
Director
1 film together
Notably Come and Find Me
Vince Gilligan
Director
1 film together
Notably El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
Christopher Cantwell
Director
1 film together
Notably The Parts You Lose
Matthew Akers
Director
1 film together
Notably David Blaine: The Magic Way
Michael Uppendahl
Director
1 film together
Notably Adam
Paul Dugdale
Director
1 film together
Notably Adele One Night Only
Riley Stearns
Director
1 film together
Notably Dual
Flying Lotus
Director
1 film together
Notably Ash
James Watkins
Director
1 film together
Notably Clayface
Derrick Borte
Director
1 film together
Notably The Get Out
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Paul Dugdale
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Adele One Night OnlyVince Gilligan
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
El Camino: A Breaking Bad MovieGabriele Muccino
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fathers and DaughtersGavin Hood
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Eye in the SkyJ.J. Abrams
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mission: Impossible IIIChristopher Cantwell
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Parts You LoseMatthew Akers
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
David Blaine: The Magic WayDerrick Borte
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Get OutMichael Uppendahl
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AdamRiley Stearns
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DualJohn Hillcoat
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Triple 9Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Exodus: Gods and KingsDavid Raynr
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Whatever It TakesZack Whedon
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Come and Find MeFlying Lotus
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
AshJames Watkins
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ClayfaceSix 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
Adele One Night Only
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
Whatever It Takes
as Floyd
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Adele One Night Only
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Mission: Impossible III
as Rick
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
as Jesse
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. Aaron Paul 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.
Thriller Legend
Awarded
11 catalogue titles in thriller, 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
Adele One Night Only
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
as Jesse
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Whatever It Takes
as Floyd
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Come and Find Me
as David
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Mission: Impossible III
as Rick
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Triple 9
as Gabe Welch
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Whatever It Takes
as Floyd
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Get Out
as Jeff
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: adventure and drama
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Christian Bale
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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