Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#1788
of 909177 performers
Top 1%
Riz Ahmed 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.
Riz Ahmed appears in 17 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Riz. Sound of Metal 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 drama, documentary, comedy. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Aneil Karia, Naqqash Khalid, Alejandro G. Iñárritu and others, Riz Ahmed 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.
Sound of Metal (2020) as Ruben Stone · Nightcrawler (2014) as Rick · Nimona (2023) as Ballister Boldheart (voice)
Career snapshot
Ranked #1788 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
17
2010–2026
Career length
16 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.7
Sound of Metal
Average Nutevio score
6.0
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.9
Nimona
Most frequent director
Aneil Karia
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Aneil Karia
Most common genre
Drama
10 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
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
6.2
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
6.9 average MV
The 2010s are where the work and the material meet. Venom, The Sisters Brothers, Jason Bourne — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
2010s
6.9
Across 7 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
2010s
6.9
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
2010s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Venom, The Sisters Brothers, Jason Bourne.
Most productive era
2020s
10 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 | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.94 films | 6.56 films |
| Action | 6.74 films | 7.32 films |
| Thriller | 7.12 films | 6.72 films |
| Comedy | 6.92 films | 3.32 films |
| Crime | 7.32 films | 6.51 film |
| Romance | — | 6.01 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
2010Centurion
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Tarak.
Highest rated performance
2014Nightcrawler
7.7 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer.
Career peak
2020Sound of Metal
Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
2026Digger
The current state of the argument, as Ganesh.
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.
17 of 17 films
as Ruben Stone
Directed by Unknown
as Rick
Directed by Dan Gilroy
as Ballister Boldheart (voice)
Directed by Troy Quane
as Ash
Directed by David Mackenzie
as Omar
Directed by Chris Morris
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
Ruben Stone
Sound of Metal (2020)
Performance score8.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Ruben Stone gives Riz Ahmed a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Rick
Nightcrawler (2014)
Performance score8.0
Nightcrawler asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rick is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Ballister Boldheart (voice)
Nimona (2023)
Performance score7.9
Nimona asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ballister Boldheart (voice) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Ash
Relay (2025)
Performance score7.6
Relay asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Ash 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 Ruben Stone
Start here. Sound of Metal is the clearest statement of what Riz Ahmed does — accessible, 121 minutes, and rated 7.7 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Riz 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.
Four Lions (2010)
Keeps the drama register of Sound of Metal but asks for a colder reading of it.
Nightcrawler (2014)
Keeps the crime register of Four Lions but asks for a colder reading of it.
Nimona (2023)
A deliberate change of key after Nightcrawler — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Relay (2025)
Keeps the action register of Nimona but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Chris Morris
Director
1 film together
Notably Four Lions
Neil Marshall
Director
1 film together
Notably Centurion
Dan Gilroy
Director
1 film together
Notably Nightcrawler
Gareth Edwards
Director
1 film together
Notably Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Paul Greengrass
Director
1 film together
Notably Jason Bourne
Jacques Audiard
Director
1 film together
Notably The Sisters Brothers
Ruben Fleischer
Director
1 film together
Notably Venom
Bassam Tariq
Director
1 film together
Notably Mogul Mowgli
Troy Quane
Director
1 film together
Notably Nimona
Wes Anderson
Director
1 film together
Notably The Phoenician Scheme
David Mackenzie
Director
1 film together
Notably Relay
Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together
Notably Digger
Naqqash Khalid
Director
1 film together
Notably The Name of Action
Aneil Karia
Director
1 film together
Notably Hamlet
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Dan Gilroy
Director
1 film together · 7.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NightcrawlerTroy Quane
Director
1 film together · 7.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
NimonaGareth Edwards
Director
1 film together · 7.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Rogue One: A Star Wars StoryDavid Mackenzie
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
RelayChris Morris
Director
1 film together · 7.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Four LionsRuben Fleischer
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
VenomJacques Audiard
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Sisters BrothersWes Anderson
Director
1 film together · 6.5 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Phoenician SchemeBassam Tariq
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Mogul MowgliPaul Greengrass
Director
1 film together · 6.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Jason BourneNeil Marshall
Director
1 film together · 6.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
CenturionAneil Karia
Director
1 film together · 5.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
HamletNaqqash Khalid
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Name of ActionAlejandro G. Iñárritu
Director
1 film together · 0.0 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
DiggerSix 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
Sound of Metal
as Ruben Stone
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Sound of Metal
as Ruben Stone
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Nightcrawler
as Rick
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
as Bodhi Rook
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Sound of Metal
as Ruben Stone
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. Riz Ahmed 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
10 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
Nimona
as Ballister Boldheart (voice)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Nightcrawler
as Rick
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Sound of Metal
as Ruben Stone
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
Encounter
as Malik Khan
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Nimona
as Ballister Boldheart (voice)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Nimona
as Ballister Boldheart (voice)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Four Lions
as Omar
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Mogul Mowgli
as Zed
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
Edward Norton
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Tom Hanks
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Bonnie Hunt
Built a career in the same territory: animation and family
Harvey Keitel
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Tom Wilkinson
Works with the same directors — shared collaborators
Have your say
Community
Which Riz Ahmed performance holds up best?
Our readers argue about this one. Make your case, or read the ranked debate already in progress.
Join the conversation
Reference
Continue exploring
Trending performers
Directors they work with
Collections to read next
