Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#15411
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Peter Lorre represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 91 years in, and Peter is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Peter Lorre appears in 18 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Peter. Casablanca is the clearest case: a film rated 8.1 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, documentary, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Roger Corman, Irwin Allen, Michael Anderson and others, Peter Lorre 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.
Casablanca (1943) as Ugarte · M (1931) as Hans Beckert · The Maltese Falcon (1941) as Joel Cairo
Career snapshot
Ranked #15411 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
18
1931–2022
Career length
91 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
8.1
Casablanca
Average Nutevio score
6.4
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
8.1
Casablanca
Most frequent director
Roger Corman
2 films together
Longest collaboration
2×
With Roger Corman
Most common genre
Comedy
6 titles
Average runtime
1h 38m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.1
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
1930s
6.8 average MV
The 1930s are where the work and the material meet. Secret Agent, Mad Love, The Man Who Knew Too Much — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1930s
6.8
Across 4 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1930s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1930s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Secret Agent, Mad Love, The Man Who Knew Too Much.
Most productive era
1940s
7 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 | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.81 film | 8.11 film | — | 6.22 films | — |
| Action | — | 6.52 films | — | — | — |
| Thriller | 6.83 films | 7.02 films | — | 6.51 film | — |
| Comedy | — | 6.92 films | 6.42 films | 6.52 films | — |
| Crime | 7.81 film | 7.42 films | 6.21 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.52 films | 8.11 film | 6.61 film | — | — |
| Horror | 6.71 film | 6.11 film | — | 6.52 films | — |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio · Career peak
1931M
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Hans Beckert. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Highest rated performance
1943Casablanca
8.1 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Most recent film
2022Way of Tomorrow: The Evolution of Science Fiction Movies
The current state of the argument, as Self - (archive footage).
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.
18 of 18 films
as Hans Beckert
Directed by Fritz Lang
as Ugarte
Directed by Michael Curtiz
as Joel Cairo
Directed by John Huston
as Doctor Gogol
Directed by Karl Freund
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
Hans Beckert
M (1931)
Performance score8.3
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Hans Beckert gives Peter Lorre a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Ugarte
Casablanca (1943)
Performance score7.8
Casablanca asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ugarte is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Joel Cairo
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Performance score7.6
The Maltese Falcon asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Joel Cairo is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Doctor Gogol
Mad Love (1935)
Performance score7.4
Mad Love asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Doctor Gogol 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 Hans Beckert
Start here. M is the clearest statement of what Peter Lorre does — accessible, 110 minutes, and rated 7.8 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Peter 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.
Mad Love (1935)
A deliberate change of key after M — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
A deliberate change of key after Mad Love — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Casablanca (1943)
A deliberate change of key after The Maltese Falcon — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
A deliberate change of key after Casablanca — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Alfred Hitchcock
Director
2 films together
Notably The Man Who Knew Too Much
Michael Curtiz
Director
2 films together
Notably Casablanca
John Huston
Director
2 films together
Notably The Maltese Falcon
Roger Corman
Director
2 films together
Notably Tales of Terror
Fritz Lang
Director
1 film together
Notably M
Karl Freund
Director
1 film together
Notably Mad Love
Fritz Hippler
Director
1 film together
Notably The Eternal Jew
Vincent Sherman
Director
1 film together
Notably All Through the Night
Edwin L. Marin
Director
1 film together
Notably Invisible Agent
Frank Capra
Director
1 film together
Notably Arsenic and Old Lace
Richard Fleischer
Director
1 film together
Notably 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Michael Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably Around the World in 80 Days
Irwin Allen
Director
1 film together
Notably Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Michael Curtiz
Director
2 films together · 7.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
CasablancaJohn Huston
Director
2 films together · 6.8 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Maltese FalconRoger Corman
Director
2 films together · 6.5 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Tales of TerrorAlfred Hitchcock
Director
2 films together · 6.3 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 2 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
The Man Who Knew Too MuchFritz Lang
Director
1 film together · 7.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
MFrank Capra
Director
1 film together · 7.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Arsenic and Old LaceRichard Fleischer
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
20,000 Leagues Under the SeaKarl Freund
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mad LoveMichael Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Around the World in 80 DaysVincent Sherman
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
All Through the NightEdwin L. Marin
Director
1 film together · 6.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Invisible AgentIrwin 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
Voyage to the Bottom of the SeaFritz Hippler
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Eternal JewSix 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
Casablanca
as Ugarte
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Casablanca
as Ugarte
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Casablanca
as Ugarte
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Around the World in 80 Days
as Steward
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
M
as Hans Beckert
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. Peter Lorre 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
91 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Comedy Legend
Awarded
6 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 Maltese Falcon
as Joel Cairo
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
M
as Hans Beckert
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Around the World in 80 Days
as Steward
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The Man Who Knew Too Much
as Abbott
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Casablanca
as Ugarte
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
All Through the Night
as Pepi
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Around the World in 80 Days
as Steward
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
The Eternal Jew
as Hans Beckert (archive footage)
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
If you like this performer
Michael Caine
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Matt Damon
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
Morgan Freeman
Built a career in the same territory: action and crime
Jamie Harris
Built a career in the same territory: adventure and drama
Have your say
Community
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Reference
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