Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#528
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Hank Azaria represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 36 years in, and Hank is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Hank Azaria appears in 35 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Hank. Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry is the clearest case: a film rated 10.0 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 music, drama, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Tony Gilroy, Matthew Nastuk, Debbie Bruce Mahan and others, Hank Azaria 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.
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry (2022) as Self · The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders (2021) as Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice) · Heat (1995) as Alan Marciano
Career snapshot
Ranked #528 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
35
1990–2026
Career length
36 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
10.0
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
10.0
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry
Most frequent director
David Silverman
4 films together
Longest collaboration
4×
With David Silverman
Most common genre
Comedy
24 titles
Average runtime
1h 29m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
6.9
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
7.1
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
7.0 average MV
The 1990s are where the work and the material meet. Bartok the Magnificent, Mystery Men, Godzilla — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1990s
7.0
Across 11 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1990s
6.9
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. Bartok the Magnificent, Mystery Men, Godzilla.
Most productive era
2020s
13 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.95 films | 7.01 film | 6.32 films | 0.01 film |
| Action | 7.24 films | 6.31 film | — | 6.51 film |
| Thriller | 7.52 films | — | 5.51 film | 7.92 films |
| Comedy | 6.56 films | 6.16 films | 6.14 films | 6.18 films |
| Crime | 8.52 films | — | — | 8.62 films |
| Romance | 7.03 films | 5.82 films | 7.01 film | 5.81 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1990Pretty Woman
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Detective.
First Nutevio masterpiece
1995Heat
The first film here to clear 9.0 on our scale — a threshold fewer than one film in ten reaches.
Highest rated performance
2021The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
10.0 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2022Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Simpsley
The current state of the argument, as Inspector Wiggum (voice).
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.
35 of 35 films
as Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
Directed by Debbie Bruce Mahan
as Alan Marciano
Directed by Michael Mann
as Alan Marciano
Directed by Michael Mann
as Bartok (voice)
Directed by Gary Goldman
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
Showing 24 of 46 titles · 46 total credits · active 1989–2026
Behemoth!
2026 · Peter Serian
Extreme Makeover: Homer Edition
2026 · Moe Szyslak (voice)
Simpsley
2026 · Inspector Wiggum (voice)
The Electric State
2025 · Perplexo (voice)
Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy
2025 · Self - Actor & Matthew's Friend
Fortnite x The Simpsons
2025 · TV · Professor Frink (voice)
The Artist
2025 · TV · Thomas Edison
Going Dutch
2025 · TV · Hank Azaria (voice)
The Simpsons: O C'mon All Ye Faithful
2024 · Moe (voice)
The Simpsons Funday Football
2024 · Moe (voice)
Maggie Simpson in "Rogue Not Quite One"
2023 · Chief Wiggum (voice)
Hello Tomorrow!
2023 · TV · Eddie Nicholls
The Idol
2023 · TV · Chaim
Out of the Blue
2022 · Jock
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry
2022 · Self
Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber
2022 · TV · Tim Cook
The Simpsons in Plusaversary
2021 · Moe Szyslak / Captain McCallister / Goofy / Buzz Lightyear (voice)
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
2021 · Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
The Simpsons | Balenciaga
2021 · Comic Book Guy
Maniac
2018 · TV · Hank Landsberg (voice)
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
2016 · Srul Katz
Happy Feet Two
2011 · Mighty Sven (voice)
Hop
2011 · Carlos / Phil (voice)
Love & Other Drugs
2010 · Dr. Stan Knight
The defining work
#1
Self
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry (2022)
Performance score9.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Hank Azaria a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders (2021)
Performance score9.7
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Alan Marciano
Heat (1995)
Performance score8.6
Heat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alan Marciano is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Alan Marciano
Heat (1995)
Performance score7.8
Heat asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Alan Marciano 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 Self
Start here. Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry is the clearest statement of what Hank Azaria does — accessible, 0 minutes, and rated 10.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Hank 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.
Heat (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Heat (1995)
Same director as Heat, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Anastasia (1997)
A deliberate change of key after Heat — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders (2021)
Keeps the animation register of Anastasia but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
David Silverman
Director
4 films together
Notably The Simpsons Movie
Debbie Bruce Mahan
Director
3 films together
Notably The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
Michael Mann
Director
2 films together
Notably Heat
Gary Goldman
Director
2 films together
Notably Anastasia
Garry Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Pretty Woman
Robert Redford
Director
1 film together
Notably Quiz Show
Lesli Linka Glatter
Director
1 film together
Notably Now and Then
Alfonso Cuarón
Director
1 film together
Notably Great Expectations
Woody Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Celebrity
Roland Emmerich
Director
1 film together
Notably Godzilla
Joe Roth
Director
1 film together
Notably America's Sweethearts
John Hamburg
Director
1 film together
Notably Along Came Polly
Harold Ramis
Director
1 film together
Notably Year One
Shawn Levy
Director
1 film together
Notably Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Edward Zwick
Director
1 film together
Notably Love & Other Drugs
Tim Hill
Director
1 film together
Notably Hop
George Miller
Director
1 film together
Notably Happy Feet Two
Joseph Cedar
Director
1 film together
Notably Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
Neil LaBute
Director
1 film together
Notably Out of the Blue
Mike B. Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Simpsons Funday Football
Anthony Russo
Director
1 film together
Notably The Electric State
Matthew Nastuk
Director
1 film together
Notably Extreme Makeover: Homer Edition
Tony Gilroy
Director
1 film together
Notably Behemoth!
Robert De Niro
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Al Pacino
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Ted Levine
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Val Kilmer
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Jon Voight
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Tom Sizemore
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Diane Venora
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Amy Brenneman
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Ashley Judd
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Mykelti Williamson
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Wes Studi
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Dennis Haysbert
Actor
1 film together
Notably Heat
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
David Silverman
Director
4 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 4 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Simpsons MovieDebbie Bruce Mahan
Director
3 films together · 8.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Simpsons: A Serious FlandersMichael Mann
Director
2 films together · 8.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
HeatGary Goldman
Director
2 films together · 6.9 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
AnastasiaGarry Marshall
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pretty WomanEdward Zwick
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Love & Other DrugsRobert Redford
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Quiz ShowMatthew Nastuk
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Extreme Makeover: Homer EditionLesli Linka Glatter
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Now and ThenAlfonso Cuarón
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Great ExpectationsAnthony Russo
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 Electric StateShawn Levy
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Night at the Museum: Battle of the SmithsonianGeorge Miller
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Happy Feet TwoJohn Hamburg
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Along Came PollyWoody Allen
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CelebrityRoland Emmerich
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GodzillaNeil LaBute
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Out of the BlueTim Hill
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HopJoe Roth
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
America's SweetheartsJoseph Cedar
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York FixerHarold Ramis
Director
1 film together · 5.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Year OneTony Gilroy
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Behemoth!Mike B. Anderson
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Simpsons Funday FootballSix 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 Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Anastasia
as Bartok (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
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Heat
as Alan Marciano
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry
as Self
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. Hank Azaria has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
| Nutevio Performer Score | 7.9 | 9.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Career ranking | #538 of 681 | #1 of 681 |
| Awards on file | Unknown | 3 recorded |
| Oscar wins | Unknown | 1 |
| Oscar nominations | Unknown | 5 |
| Average Nutevio score | 9.0 | 9.1 |
| Genres | Crime, Thriller, Action | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, History |
| Directors | Michael Mann | Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese |
| Performance DNA | Intensity, Villain presence, Screen presence | Transformation, Drama, Screen presence |
| Career timeline | 1995–1995 | 2006–2026 |
| Most iconic role | Alan Marciano — Heat | Odysseus — The Odyssey |
| Most rewatchable film | Heat | Interstellar |
| Filmography | 1 catalogue film | 4 catalogue films |
Films together
Nothing in common in the library yet.
Shared directors
Nothing in common in the library yet.
Shared collections
Top 100 Crime Movies, Crime Movies, Thriller Movies
Matt Damon edges ahead here — a higher floor across a comparable body of work.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
36 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.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
24 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
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Simpsons: A Serious Flanders
as Comic Book Guy / Disco Stu / Snake Jailbird (voice)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Anastasia
as Bartok (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Out of the Blue
as Jock
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry
as Self
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Electric State
as Perplexo (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Bartok the Magnificent
as Bartok (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Heat
as Alan Marciano
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
Across the library
Every Nutevio collection this name turns up in, and how high they rank there.
Collection footprint
Appears in 6 Nutevio collections
Keep reading
theme
Best Heist Movies
Features Heat at #1
Read the collectiongenre
Best Action Movies
Features Heat at #2
Read the collectiongenre
Top 100 Crime Movies
Features Heat
Read the collectiongenre
Action Movies
Features Heat
Read the collectiongenre
Crime Movies
Features Heat
Read the collectiongenre
Thriller Movies
Features Heat
Read the collectionFrom the magazine
Essay
The evolution of Hank Azaria, read through best heist movies
4 min read
Genre guide
Why Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry still sets the terms for best action movies
5 min read
Genre guide
Top 100 Crime Movies: where Azaria fits
8 min read
Genre guide
Robin Williams: Laugh Until You Cry, explained
6 min read
If you like this performer
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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
Robert De Niro
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
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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