Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#14215
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Attila Árpa represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 46 years in, and Attila is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Attila Árpa appears in 16 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Attila. The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die is the clearest case: a film rated 7.1 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, comedy, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with James Madigan, Edward Bazalgette, Gerhard Rekel and others, Attila Árpa 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 Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023) as King of Shetland · Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) as Violinist Boy (uncredited) · Spy (2015) as Italian Guy #1
Career snapshot
Ranked #14215 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
16
1979–2025
Career length
46 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.0
Kaffee - Geheimnisse eines Wundertranks
Most frequent director
James Madigan
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With James Madigan
Most common genre
Action
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 40m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
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
6.7
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
1970s
7.1 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Nosferatu the Vampyre — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.1
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.3
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1970s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Nosferatu the Vampyre.
Most productive era
2010s
10 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 | 1970s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.11 film | 4.43 films | — |
| Action | — | 6.46 films | 6.82 films |
| Thriller | — | 6.35 films | 6.41 film |
| Comedy | — | 6.73 films | 6.32 films |
| Crime | — | 6.72 films | — |
| Romance | — | 6.81 film | 6.51 film |
| Horror | 7.11 film | — | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Highest rated performance · Career peak
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Violinist Boy (uncredited). 7.1 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
2025Fight or Flight
The current state of the argument, as Yemeni Businessman.
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 King of Shetland
Directed by Edward Bazalgette
as Violinist Boy (uncredited)
Directed by Werner Herzog
as Halott Szentkúti
Directed by Unknown
as Ervin
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
King of Shetland
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die (2023)
Performance score7.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. King of Shetland gives Attila Árpa a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Violinist Boy (uncredited)
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
Performance score7.0
Nosferatu the Vampyre asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Violinist Boy (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Italian Guy #1
Spy (2015)
Performance score6.8
Spy asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Italian Guy #1 is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Halott Szentkúti
Halfway Home (2022)
Performance score6.7
Halfway Home asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Halott Szentkúti 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 King of Shetland
Start here. The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die is the clearest statement of what Attila Árpa does — accessible, 111 minutes, and rated 7.1 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Attila 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.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
A deliberate change of key after The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Spy (2015)
A deliberate change of key after Nosferatu the Vampyre — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Garbage Theory (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of Spy but asks for a colder reading of it.
Halfway Home (2022)
Same director as Garbage Theory, 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.
Werner Herzog
Director
1 film together
Notably Nosferatu the Vampyre
Thomas Bezucha
Director
1 film together
Notably Monte Carlo
Paul Feig
Director
1 film together
Notably Spy
Ron Howard
Director
1 film together
Notably Inferno
David Leitch
Director
1 film together
Notably Atomic Blonde
Wash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together
Notably Colette
Susanna Fogel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Spy Who Dumped Me
Francis Lawrence
Director
1 film together
Notably Red Sparrow
Gerhard Rekel
Director
1 film together
Notably Kaffee - Geheimnisse eines Wundertranks
Edward Bazalgette
Director
1 film together
Notably The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
James Madigan
Director
1 film together
Notably Fight or Flight
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Edward Bazalgette
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must DieWerner Herzog
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Nosferatu the VampyrePaul Feig
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpyWash Westmoreland
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
ColetteThomas Bezucha
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Monte CarloFrancis Lawrence
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Red SparrowDavid Leitch
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Atomic BlondeSusanna Fogel
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 Spy Who Dumped MeJames Madigan
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fight or FlightGerhard Rekel
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Kaffee - Geheimnisse eines WundertranksRon Howard
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
InfernoSix 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 Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as King of Shetland
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Halfway Home
as Halott Szentkúti
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Nosferatu the Vampyre
as Violinist Boy (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
The Spy Who Dumped Me
as Security Guard
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as King of Shetland
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. Attila Árpa 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
46 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
8 catalogue titles in action, 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
Red Sparrow
as Ustinov Security #1
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Red Sparrow
as Ustinov Security #1
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Halfway Home
as Halott Szentkúti
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Red Sparrow
as Ustinov Security #1
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as King of Shetland
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Spy Who Dumped Me
as Security Guard
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die
as King of Shetland
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Garbage Theory
as Ervin
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
Community
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Reference
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