Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#4437
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Omid Djalili represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 26 years in, and Omid is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Omid Djalili appears in 20 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Omid. Gladiator is the clearest case: a film rated 8.5 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, adventure, family. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Pierre Perifel, Tom Kingsley, Joe Johnston and others, Omid Djalili 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.
Gladiator (2000) as Slave Trader · Journey to Bethlehem (2023) as Melchior · The Bad Guys 2 (2025) as Mr. Soliman (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #4437 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
20
1999–2025
Career length
26 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.5
Gladiator
Average Nutevio score
6.8
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.2
Gladiator
Most frequent director
Pierre Perifel
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Pierre Perifel
Most common genre
Comedy
11 titles
Average runtime
1h 55m
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
6.8
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
7.1 average MV
The 2020s are where the work and the material meet. The Bad Guys 2, In Your Dreams, Deep Cover — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2020s
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
2020s
7.1
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. Notting Hill, The Mummy, The World Is Not Enough.
Most productive era
2000s
9 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 | — | 7.14 films | 6.01 film | 7.22 films |
| Action | 6.82 films | 7.63 films | — | 6.71 film |
| Thriller | 6.31 film | 6.91 film | — | — |
| Comedy | 7.31 film | 5.94 films | 6.52 films | 7.04 films |
| Crime | — | 6.91 film | — | 7.12 films |
| Romance | 7.31 film | 5.32 films | 6.52 films | 6.71 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1999Notting Hill
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Coffee Shop Cashier (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
2000Gladiator
8.5 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
2025Deep Cover
The current state of the argument, as Sagar.
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 Slave Trader
Directed by Ridley Scott
as Mr. Soliman (voice)
Directed by Pierre Perifel
as Askay / Pusasn
Directed by Gore Verbinski
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
Slave Trader
Gladiator (2000)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Slave Trader gives Omid Djalili a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Melchior
Journey to Bethlehem (2023)
Performance score8.0
Journey to Bethlehem asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Melchior is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Pablo Picasso
Modigliani (2004)
Performance score7.4
Modigliani asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Pablo Picasso is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Mr. Soliman (voice)
The Bad Guys 2 (2025)
Performance score7.3
The Bad Guys 2 asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Mr. Soliman (voice) 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 Slave Trader
Start here. Gladiator is the clearest statement of what Omid Djalili does — accessible, 155 minutes, and rated 8.5 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Omid 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.
Modigliani (2004)
Keeps the drama register of Gladiator but asks for a colder reading of it.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
A deliberate change of key after Modigliani — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Journey to Bethlehem (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Bad Guys 2 (2025)
Keeps the family register of Journey to Bethlehem but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Michael Apted
Director
1 film together
Notably The World Is Not Enough
Stephen Sommers
Director
1 film together
Notably The Mummy
Roger Michell
Director
1 film together
Notably Notting Hill
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Gladiator
Tony Scott
Director
1 film together
Notably Spy Game
Lasse Hallström
Director
1 film together
Notably Casanova
Karey Kirkpatrick
Director
1 film together
Notably Over the Hedge
Gore Verbinski
Director
1 film together
Notably Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Marco Schnabel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Love Guru
Michael Patrick King
Director
1 film together
Notably Sex and the City 2
Joe Johnston
Director
1 film together
Notably The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Tom Kingsley
Director
1 film together
Notably Deep Cover
Pierre Perifel
Director
1 film together
Notably The Bad Guys 2
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Ridley Scott
Director
1 film together · 8.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
GladiatorPierre Perifel
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Bad Guys 2Gore Verbinski
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's EndRoger Michell
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Notting HillStephen Sommers
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The MummyTony Scott
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Spy GameTom Kingsley
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Deep CoverKarey Kirkpatrick
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Over the HedgeLasse Hallström
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CasanovaMichael Apted
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 World Is Not EnoughJoe Johnston
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 Nutcracker and the Four RealmsMichael Patrick King
Director
1 film together · 6.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Sex and the City 2Marco Schnabel
Director
1 film together · 4.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Love GuruSix 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
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Journey to Bethlehem
as Melchior
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Spy Game
as Doumet
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
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. Omid Djalili 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
26 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
11 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
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Casanova
as Lupo
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
as Cavalier
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
as Askay / Pusasn
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
The Bad Guys 2
as Mr. Soliman (voice)
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Gladiator
as Slave Trader
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Matt Damon
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Harry Dean Stanton
Works with the same directors — Ridley Scott
Elliot Page
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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