Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#20142
of 909177 performers
Top 5%
Rossy de Palma represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and Rossy is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
Rossy de Palma appears in 22 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without Rossy. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 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, drama, thriller. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Pedro Almodóvar, Terry Gilliam, Robert Altman and others, Rossy de Palma 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.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) as Marisa · Broken Embraces (2009) as Julieta · Law of Desire (1987) as Locutora tele
Career snapshot
Ranked #20142 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
22
1987–2026
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Average Nutevio score
5.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.4
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Most frequent director
Pedro Almodóvar
6 films together
Longest collaboration
6×
With Pedro Almodóvar
Most common genre
Comedy
15 titles
Average runtime
1h 41m
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
6.5
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
1980s
7.3 average MV
The 1980s are where the work and the material meet. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Law of Desire — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1980s
7.3
Across 2 catalogue films in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1980s
7.2
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1980s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Law of Desire.
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 | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 7.32 films | 6.81 film | 7.21 film | 6.71 film | 6.36 films |
| Thriller | 7.11 film | — | 7.21 film | — | 6.01 film |
| Comedy | 7.32 films | 6.02 films | — | 5.85 films | 5.86 films |
| Crime | — | — | — | — | 5.01 film |
| Romance | 7.11 film | 6.81 film | 7.21 film | 6.71 film | 6.61 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1987Law of Desire
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Locutora tele.
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1988Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
7.4 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
2026La Tarara
The current state of the argument.
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.
22 of 22 films
as Auntie Rock / Zia Dolores
Directed by Unknown
as Rosaura
Directed by Unknown
as Julieta
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
as Elena
Directed by Pedro Almodóvar
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
Marisa
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Performance score7.5
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Marisa gives Rossy de Palma a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Auntie Rock / Zia Dolores
My Brother Chases Dinosaurs (2019)
Performance score7.4
My Brother Chases Dinosaurs asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Auntie Rock / Zia Dolores is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Rosaura
I Miss You (2019)
Performance score7.1
I Miss You asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Rosaura is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Julieta
Broken Embraces (2009)
Performance score7.1
Broken Embraces asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Julieta 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 Marisa
Start here. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is the clearest statement of what Rossy de Palma does — accessible, 88 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet Rossy 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.
Broken Embraces (2009)
Same director as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
My Brother Chases Dinosaurs (2019)
A deliberate change of key after Broken Embraces — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
I Miss You (2019)
Same director as My Brother Chases Dinosaurs, different problem to solve. Watching them in order shows how much of the effect was the collaboration.
Parallel Mothers (2021)
Keeps the drama register of I Miss You but asks for a colder reading of it.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Pedro Almodóvar
Director
6 films together
Notably Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Alek Keshishian
Director
1 film together
Notably Madonna: Truth or Dare
Robert Altman
Director
1 film together
Notably Prêt-à-Porter
Terry Gilliam
Director
1 film together
Notably The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Pedro Almodóvar
Director
6 films together · 7.0 avg MV
A working relationship rather than a booking — 6 films, and the register shifts each time.
Best film together
Women on the Verge of a Nervous BreakdownTerry Gilliam
Director
1 film together · 6.7 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Man Who Killed Don QuixoteAlek Keshishian
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Madonna: Truth or DareRobert Altman
Director
1 film together · 5.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Prêt-à-PorterSix 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
Broken Embraces
as Julieta
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Broken Embraces
as Julieta
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
as Marisa
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Law of Desire
as Locutora tele
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
as Marisa
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. Rossy de Palma 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
39 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
15 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
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
as Marisa
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
Broken Embraces
as Julieta
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
A Mermaid in Paris
as Rossy
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
The House
as Brigida
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
as Marisa
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
A Mermaid in Paris
as Rossy
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Madonna: Truth or Dare
as Self
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
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Reference
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