Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#98327
of 909177 performers
Top 25%
Cleavon Little works on transformation 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.
Cleavon Little appears in 3 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Cleavon. Blazing Saddles is the clearest case: a film rated 7.2 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are transformation, quiet performance, versatility. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for comedy, horror, western. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Howard Storm, Mel Brooks, Richard C. Sarafian, Cleavon Little 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.
Blazing Saddles (1974) as Bart · Vanishing Point (1971) as Super Soul · Once Bitten (1985) as Sebastian
Career snapshot
Ranked #98327 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
3
1971–1985
Career length
14 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Blazing Saddles
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.2
Blazing Saddles
Most frequent director
Howard Storm
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Howard Storm
Most common genre
Comedy
2 titles
Average runtime
1h 35m
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
1970s
7.1 average MV
The 1970s are where the work and the material meet. Blazing Saddles, Vanishing Point — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1970s
7.1
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1970s
7.2
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. Blazing Saddles, Vanishing Point.
Most productive era
1970s
2 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 | 1980s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.91 film | — |
| Action | 6.91 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | — |
| Comedy | 7.21 film | 5.81 film |
| Crime | 6.91 film | — |
| Horror | — | 5.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1971Vanishing Point
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Super Soul.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1974Blazing Saddles
7.2 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
1985Once Bitten
The current state of the argument, as Sebastian.
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.
3 of 3 films
as Bart
Directed by Mel Brooks
as Super Soul
Directed by Richard C. Sarafian
as Sebastian
Directed by Howard Storm
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
Bart
Blazing Saddles (1974)
Performance score7.8
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Bart gives Cleavon Little a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Super Soul
Vanishing Point (1971)
Performance score7.3
Vanishing Point asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Super Soul is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Sebastian
Once Bitten (1985)
Performance score6.5
Once Bitten asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Sebastian 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 Bart
Start here. Blazing Saddles is the clearest statement of what Cleavon Little does — accessible, 93 minutes, and rated 7.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Cleavon 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.
Vanishing Point (1971)
A deliberate change of key after Blazing Saddles — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Once Bitten (1985)
A deliberate change of key after Vanishing Point — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
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.
Mel Brooks
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Blazing SaddlesRichard C. Sarafian
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Vanishing PointHoward Storm
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Once BittenSix 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
Blazing Saddles
as Bart
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Blazing Saddles
as Bart
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Blazing Saddles
as Bart
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. Cleavon Little 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
2 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
Blazing Saddles
as Bart
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Vanishing Point
as Super Soul
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Once Bitten
as Sebastian
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
Cillian Murphy
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 thriller
Ted Levine
Built a career in the same territory: crime and thriller
Leonardo DiCaprio
Built a career in the same territory: thriller and action
Have your say
Community
Which Cleavon Little 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
