Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#13728
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Bernie Mac 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.
Bernie Mac appears in 11 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Bernie. Ocean's Eleven 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 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 comedy, family, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Eric Darnell, Malcolm D. Lee, Michael Bay and others, Bernie Mac 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.
Ocean's Eleven (2001) as Frank Catton · Transformers (2007) as Bobby Bolivia · Ocean's Thirteen (2007) as Frank Catton
Career snapshot
Ranked #13728 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
11
1999–2009
Career length
10 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.6
Ocean's Eleven
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.5
Ocean's Eleven
Most frequent director
Eric Darnell
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Eric Darnell
Most common genre
Comedy
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 49m
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
6.2
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. Life — 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. Life.
Most productive era
2000s
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 | 1990s | 2000s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | — | 5.61 film |
| Action | — | 6.32 films |
| Thriller | — | 7.03 films |
| Comedy | 6.71 film | 5.96 films |
| Crime | 6.71 film | 7.03 films |
| Romance | — | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Life
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Jangle Leg.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2001Ocean's Eleven
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
2009Old Dogs
The current state of the argument, as Jimmy Lunchbox.
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 Frank Catton
Directed by Unknown
as Frank Catton
Directed by Unknown
as Bobby Bolivia
Directed by Michael Bay
as Percy Jones
Directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan
as Floyd Henderson
Directed by Malcolm D. Lee
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
Frank Catton
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
Performance score7.4
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Frank Catton gives Bernie Mac a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Frank Catton
Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
Performance score7.0
Ocean's Thirteen asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Frank Catton is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Bobby Bolivia
Transformers (2007)
Performance score6.9
Transformers asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Bobby Bolivia is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Percy Jones
Guess Who (2005)
Performance score6.8
Guess Who asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Percy Jones 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 Frank Catton
Start here. Ocean's Eleven is the clearest statement of what Bernie Mac does — accessible, 116 minutes, and rated 7.6 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Bernie 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.
Guess Who (2005)
A deliberate change of key after Ocean's Eleven — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Ocean's Thirteen (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Guess Who — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Transformers (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Ocean's Thirteen — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Soul Men (2008)
A deliberate change of key after Transformers — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Ted Demme
Director
1 film together
Notably Life
Chris Rock
Director
1 film together
Notably Head of State
McG
Director
1 film together
Notably Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Kevin Rodney Sullivan
Director
1 film together
Notably Guess Who
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together
Notably Transformers
Malcolm D. Lee
Director
1 film together
Notably Soul Men
Eric Darnell
Director
1 film together
Notably Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Bay
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
TransformersEric Darnell
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Madagascar: Escape 2 AfricaTed Demme
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
LifeMalcolm D. Lee
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Soul MenKevin Rodney Sullivan
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Guess WhoChris Rock
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Head of StateMcG
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Charlie's Angels: Full ThrottleSix 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
Ocean's Eleven
as Frank Catton
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
as Zuba (voice)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Ocean's Eleven
as Frank Catton
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Transformers
as Bobby Bolivia
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Ocean's Eleven
as Frank Catton
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. Bernie Mac 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in comedy, 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
Ocean's Eleven
as Frank Catton
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Ocean's Eleven
as Frank Catton
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
as Zuba (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Ocean's Eleven
as Frank Catton
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Transformers
as Bobby Bolivia
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Transformers
as Bobby Bolivia
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
as Zuba (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
as Zuba (voice)
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
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
David Krumholtz
Built a career in the same territory: action and adventure
Cillian Murphy
Built a career in the same territory: drama and thriller
Have your say
Community
Which Bernie Mac performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
