Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#3535
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Ludacris 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.
Ludacris appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Ludacris. Wicked: One Wonderful Night is the clearest case: a film rated 8.2 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, action, crime. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Paul Dugdale, Louis Leterrier, Tim Story and others, Ludacris 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.
Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025) as Self · Fast X (2023) as Tej · Furious 7 (2015) as Tej Parker
Career snapshot
Ranked #3535 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
2003–2025
Career length
22 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.2
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
Average Nutevio score
6.2
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
Most frequent director
Justin Lin
3 films together
Longest collaboration
3×
With Justin Lin
Most common genre
Action
10 titles
Average runtime
1h 53m
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
2010s
6.6 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Show Dogs, The Fate of the Furious, Furious 7 — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.6
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
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. Gamer, RocknRolla, Max Payne.
Most productive era
2020s
8 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 | — | 5.62 films |
| Action | 6.24 films | 7.04 films | 7.12 films |
| Thriller | 6.43 films | 7.04 films | 6.13 films |
| Comedy | — | 6.03 films | 6.01 film |
| Crime | 6.33 films | 6.85 films | 7.12 films |
| Romance | — | 6.12 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
20032 Fast 2 Furious
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tej Parker.
Highest rated performance · Career peak · Most recent film
2025Wicked: One Wonderful Night
8.2 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. 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.
20 of 20 films
as Tej
Directed by Louis Leterrier
as Tej Parker
Directed by Justin Lin
as Tej Parker
Directed by Justin Lin
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
Self
Wicked: One Wonderful Night (2025)
Performance score7.9
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Self gives Ludacris a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Tej
Fast X (2023)
Performance score7.3
Fast X asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tej is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Tej Parker
Furious 7 (2015)
Performance score7.3
Furious 7 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tej Parker is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Tej Parker
Fast Five (2011)
Performance score7.3
Fast Five asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Tej Parker 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. Wicked: One Wonderful Night is the clearest statement of what Ludacris does — accessible, 84 minutes, and rated 8.2 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Ludacris 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.
Fast Five (2011)
A deliberate change of key after Wicked: One Wonderful Night — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Furious 7 (2015)
Keeps the action register of Fast Five but asks for a colder reading of it.
F9 (2021)
Keeps the action register of Furious 7 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Fast X (2023)
Keeps the action register of F9 but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Justin Lin
Director
3 films together
Notably Fast Five
John Singleton
Director
1 film together
Notably 2 Fast 2 Furious
Paul Haggis
Director
1 film together
Notably Crash
Guy Ritchie
Director
1 film together
Notably RocknRolla
Brian Taylor
Director
1 film together
Notably Gamer
Ivan Reitman
Director
1 film together
Notably No Strings Attached
Garry Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably New Year's Eve
James Wan
Director
1 film together
Notably Furious 7
F. Gary Gray
Director
1 film together
Notably The Fate of the Furious
Raja Gosnell
Director
1 film together
Notably Show Dogs
Nas
Director
1 film together
Notably You're Watching Video Music Box
Millicent Shelton
Director
1 film together
Notably End of the Road
Tim Story
Director
1 film together
Notably Dashing Through the Snow
Louis Leterrier
Director
1 film together
Notably Fast X
Paul Dugdale
Director
1 film together
Notably Wicked: One Wonderful Night
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Justin Lin
Director
3 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 3 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Fast FivePaul Dugdale
Director
1 film together · 8.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Wicked: One Wonderful NightLouis Leterrier
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Fast XJames Wan
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Furious 7Paul Haggis
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CrashGuy Ritchie
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RocknRollaF. Gary Gray
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 Fate of the FuriousJohn Singleton
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
2 Fast 2 FuriousNas
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
You're Watching Video Music BoxIvan Reitman
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
No Strings AttachedTim Story
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Dashing Through the SnowMillicent Shelton
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
End of the RoadRaja Gosnell
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Show DogsGarry Marshall
Director
1 film together · 5.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
New Year's EveBrian Taylor
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GamerSix 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
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
as Self
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
as Self
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
as Self
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
You're Watching Video Music Box
as Self (archive footage)
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
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. Ludacris 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
22 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.
Action Legend
Awarded
10 catalogue titles in action, 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
Wicked: One Wonderful Night
as Self
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Fast X
as Tej
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
No Strings Attached
as Wallace
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Fast & Furious 6
as Tej Parker
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
F9
as Tej Parker
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
F9
as Tej Parker
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Show Dogs
as Max (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Fast X
as Tej
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: family and comedy
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
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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