Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#32933
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Iggy Pop represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Iggy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Iggy Pop appears in 13 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Iggy. Dead Man 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 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, documentary, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Jim Jarmusch, Terrence Malick, Luc Besson and others, Iggy Pop 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.
Dead Man (1995) as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko · The King (2023) as Self · Coffee and Cigarettes (2004) as Iggy (segment "Somewhere in California")
Career snapshot
Ranked #32933 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
13
1986–2025
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.2
Dead Man
Average Nutevio score
6.1
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.3
Dead Man
Most frequent director
Jim Jarmusch
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Jim Jarmusch
Most common genre
Drama
7 titles
Average runtime
1h 59m
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
6.6
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
1980s
6.8 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. The Color of Money, Sid and Nancy — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
6.8
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
6.8
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Color of Money, Sid and Nancy.
Most productive era
1990s
4 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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.82 films | 6.62 films | 6.91 film | 5.52 films | — |
| Action | — | 5.51 film | — | — | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.02 films | 6.02 films | 5.41 film | — |
| Romance | 6.71 film | 6.51 film | — | 5.51 film | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 5.41 film | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Skinny Player on the Road.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1995Dead Man
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
20252025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
The current state of the argument, as Self.
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.
13 of 13 films
as Iggy (segment "Somewhere in California")
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
as Skinny Player on the Road
Directed by Martin Scorsese
as Belvedere Rickettes
Directed by John Waters
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Self
The King (2023)
Performance score7.1
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Iggy Pop a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Iggy (segment "Somewhere in California")
Coffee and Cigarettes (2004)
Performance score7.1
Coffee and Cigarettes asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Iggy (segment "Somewhere in California") is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
Dead Man (1995)
Performance score7.1
Dead Man asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Skinny Player on the Road
The Color of Money (1986)
Performance score6.8
The Color of Money asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Skinny Player on the Road 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. The King is the clearest statement of what Iggy Pop does — accessible, 98 minutes, and rated 7.0 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Iggy 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.
The Color of Money (1986)
A deliberate change of key after The King — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Cry-Baby (1990)
A deliberate change of key after The Color of Money — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Dead Man (1995)
A deliberate change of key after Cry-Baby — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Coffee and Cigarettes (2004)
Same director as Dead Man, 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.
Jim Jarmusch
Director
3 films together
Notably Dead Man
Alex Cox
Director
1 film together
Notably Sid and Nancy
Martin Scorsese
Director
1 film together
Notably The Color of Money
John Waters
Director
1 film together
Notably Cry-Baby
Rachel Talalay
Director
1 film together
Notably Tank Girl
Johnny Depp
Director
1 film together
Notably The Brave
Chris Koch
Director
1 film together
Notably Snow Day
Luc Besson
Director
1 film together
Notably Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds
Terrence Malick
Director
1 film together
Notably Song to Song
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Jim Jarmusch
Director
3 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Dead ManMartin Scorsese
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Color of MoneyAlex Cox
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sid and NancyJohn Waters
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Cry-BabyJohnny Depp
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BraveLuc Besson
Director
1 film together · 5.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Arthur 3: The War of the Two WorldsTerrence Malick
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Song to SongRachel Talalay
Director
1 film together · 5.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Tank GirlChris Koch
Director
1 film together · 5.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Snow DaySix 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
Dead Man
as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sid and Nancy
as Prospective Guest #1
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Dead Man
as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Sid and Nancy
as Prospective Guest #1
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
The King
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. Iggy Pop 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
39 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
7 catalogue titles in drama, 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
Dead Man
as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Dead Man
as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Song to Song
as Iggy Pop
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds
as Darkos (voice)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Dead Man
as Salvatore 'Sally' Jenko
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Tank Girl
as Rat Face
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Arthur 3: The War of the Two Worlds
as Darkos (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Color of Money
as Skinny Player on the Road
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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