Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#2627
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
John Magaro 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.
John Magaro appears in 27 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without John. Past Lives is the clearest case: a film rated 7.7 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 science fiction, horror, fantasy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Celine Song, George Tillman Jr. and others, John Magaro 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.
Past Lives (2023) as Arthur · Big George Foreman (2023) as Desmond · Carol (2015) as Dannie McElroy
Career snapshot
Ranked #2627 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
27
2007–2026
Career length
19 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Past Lives
Average Nutevio score
6.6
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.7
Past Lives
Most frequent director
Celine Song
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Celine Song
Most common genre
Drama
19 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
7.0
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
2010s
7.1 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Overlord, The Big Short, Carol — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
7.1
Across 5 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
7.1
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. Taking Chance, The Box, The Life Before Her Eyes.
Most productive era
2020s
19 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 | 6.72 films | 7.24 films | 6.613 films |
| Thriller | 5.82 films | — | 5.95 films |
| Comedy | — | 7.02 films | 6.74 films |
| Crime | — | — | 6.16 films |
| Romance | — | 7.02 films | 6.84 films |
| Horror | — | 6.71 film | 5.32 films |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Michael Patrick.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2023Past Lives
7.7 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
2026The Bride!
The current state of the argument, as Clyde.
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.
27 of 27 films
as Arthur
Directed by Celine Song
as Dannie McElroy
Directed by Todd Haynes
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
Arthur
Past Lives (2023)
Performance score8.0
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Arthur gives John Magaro a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Desmond
Big George Foreman (2023)
Performance score7.7
Big George Foreman asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Desmond is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Keith Jarrett
Köln 75 (2025)
Performance score7.6
Köln 75 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Keith Jarrett is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Cookie
First Cow (2020)
Performance score7.6
First Cow asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Cookie 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 Arthur
Start here. Past Lives is the clearest statement of what John Magaro does — accessible, 106 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet John 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.
Carol (2015)
Keeps the romance register of Past Lives but asks for a colder reading of it.
First Cow (2020)
Keeps the drama register of Carol but asks for a colder reading of it.
Big George Foreman (2023)
Keeps the drama register of First Cow but asks for a colder reading of it.
Köln 75 (2025)
Keeps the drama register of Big George Foreman but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Celine Song
Director
2 films together
Notably Past Lives
Richard Kelly
Director
1 film together
Notably The Box
Ross Katz
Director
1 film together
Notably Taking Chance
Josh Radnor
Director
1 film together
Notably Liberal Arts
Angelina Jolie
Director
1 film together
Notably Unbroken
Todd Haynes
Director
1 film together
Notably Carol
Adam McKay
Director
1 film together
Notably The Big Short
Alan Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably The Many Saints of Newark
George Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together
Notably Big George Foreman
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bride!
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Celine Song
Director
2 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Past LivesGeorge Tillman Jr.
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Big George ForemanTodd Haynes
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CarolAdam McKay
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Big ShortAngelina Jolie
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
UnbrokenRoss Katz
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Taking ChanceJosh Radnor
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Liberal ArtsAlan Taylor
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Many Saints of NewarkMaggie Gyllenhaal
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bride!Richard Kelly
Director
1 film together · 5.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The BoxSix 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
Big George Foreman
as Desmond
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Past Lives
as Arthur
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Past Lives
as Arthur
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Unbroken
as Frank A. Tinker
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Past Lives
as Arthur
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. John Magaro 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.
Drama Legend
Awarded
19 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
Past Lives
as Arthur
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
LaRoy, Texas
as Ray
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Materialists
as Mark P. (voice)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Life Before Her Eyes
as Michael Patrick
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Past Lives
as Arthur
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
First Cow
as Cookie
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Under the Boardwalk
as Manny (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Liberal Arts
as Dean
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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