Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#18655
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Dane Cook 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.
Dane Cook appears in 10 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Dane. Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy 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 comedy, documentary, adventure. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Michael Bonfiglio, Jay Karas, Bobs Gannaway and others, Dane Cook 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.
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy (2021) as Self · Dane Cook: Above It All (2022) as Himself · Mr. Brooks (2007) as Mr. Smith
Career snapshot
Ranked #18655 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
10
2003–2022
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.1
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
Average Nutevio score
6.3
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.1
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
Most frequent director
Michael Bonfiglio
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Michael Bonfiglio
Most common genre
Comedy
8 titles
Average runtime
1h 37m
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
6.3
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
2020s
6.6 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. Dane Cook: Above It All, Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy, Feeding America Comedy Festival — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
6.6
Across 3 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2020s
6.6
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. Dan in Real Life, Mr. Brooks, London.
Most productive era
2000s
5 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 | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 6.13 films | 5.92 films | 6.63 films |
| Crime | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.32 films | — | — |
| Horror | — | 5.61 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2003Stuck on You
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Officer Fraioli.
Highest rated performance
2021Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
7.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak · Most recent film
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once. The current state of the argument, as Himself.
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.
10 of 10 films
as Mr. Smith
Directed by Bruce A. Evans
as Mitch
Directed by Peter Hedges
as Dusty Crophopper (voice)
Directed by Bobs Gannaway
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
Himself
Dane Cook: Above It All (2022)
Performance score7.6
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Himself gives Dane Cook a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Mr. Smith
Mr. Brooks (2007)
Performance score7.3
Mr. Brooks asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Smith is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Self
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy (2021)
Performance score7.2
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy 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#4
Mitch
Dan in Real Life (2007)
Performance score7.0
Dan in Real Life asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mitch 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 Himself
Start here. Dane Cook: Above It All is the clearest statement of what Dane Cook does — accessible, 58 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Dane 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.
Mr. Brooks (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Dane Cook: Above It All — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dan in Real Life (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Mr. Brooks — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014)
Keeps the comedy register of Dan in Real Life but asks for a colder reading of it.
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy (2021)
Keeps the comedy register of Planes: Fire & Rescue but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Bobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together
Notably Stuck on You
Bruce A. Evans
Director
1 film together
Notably Mr. Brooks
Peter Hedges
Director
1 film together
Notably Dan in Real Life
Joseph Kahn
Director
1 film together
Notably Detention
Bobs Gannaway
Director
1 film together
Notably Planes: Fire & Rescue
Jay Karas
Director
1 film together
Notably Feeding America Comedy Festival
Michael Bonfiglio
Director
1 film together
Notably Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Bonfiglio
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is EasyBruce A. Evans
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mr. BrooksPeter Hedges
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dan in Real LifeBobs Gannaway
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Planes: Fire & RescueJay Karas
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Feeding America Comedy FestivalJoseph Kahn
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DetentionBobby Farrelly
Director
1 film together · 5.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Stuck on YouSix 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
Mr. Brooks
as Mr. Smith
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
London
as George
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Feeding America Comedy Festival
as Self
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Dane Cook: Above It All
as Himself
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. Dane Cook 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
8 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
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Mr. Brooks
as Mr. Smith
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
London
as George
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Mr. Brooks
as Mr. Smith
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Patrice O'Neal: Killing Is Easy
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Planes: Fire & Rescue
as Dusty Crophopper (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Dan in Real Life
as Mitch
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Stuck on You
as Officer Fraioli
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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