Mario Van PeeblesFilmography

The Uniter

Crew: Director, Screenwriter

Synopsis: Mario Van Peebles writes and directs this sci-fi tale that follows a political exile who goes back in time to train a young teen who could bring peace to the future of the planet. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide Read More

Multiple Sarcasms

Actors: Timothy Hutton, Mira Sorvino

Sharpshooter

Actors: James Remar, Mario Van Peebles, Bruce Boxleitner

Synopsis: James Remar and Melvin Van Peebles headline this relentlessly tense tale of a special ops sniper who reluctantly accepts one final mission before disappearing into retirement. Dillon (Remar) is a special ops sharpshooter extraordinaire - the kind of triggerman who could take out a Tic Tac at Read More

How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)

Actors: Dick Hehmeyer

Synopsis: Melvin Van Peebles created a new style of African-American filmmaking in 1971, when on a shoestring budget he made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, a violent action picture about a sex-show stud on the run from the police that below the surface served as a call for revolution in the black Read More

Hard Luck

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Wesley Snipes, Mario Van Peebles, Cybill Shepherd

Synopsis: An infamous ex-con on the road to redemption finds his quest unexpectedly complicated by the police, the mafia, and two of the nation's most vicious serial killers in a high octane crime thriller starring and directed by Mario Van Peebles and featuring Wesley Snipes and Cybill Shepherd. ~ Jason Read More

Carlito's Way: Rise to Power

Actors: Jay Hernandez, Mario Van Peebles, Luis Guzman, Sean Combs, Michael Kelly, Jaclyn DeSantis

Synopsis: In this belated prequel to director Brian De Palma's 1993 crime drama, gangster Carlito Brigante (Jay Hernandez) rises through the ranks of the New York underworld to establish himself as Spanish Harlem's most powerful kingpin. As the intoxication of ultimate power tightens its firm grip on the Read More

BAADASSSSS!

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: T.K. Carter, David Alan Grier, Nia Long, Paul Rodriguez, Ossie Davis, Rainn Wilson, Joy Bryant, Khleo Thomas, Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: In 1971, filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles released his third film, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, which he wrote, directed, and scored. Despite boasting an all-black cast, an X rating, a low budget, and a decidedly non-Hollywood approach to moviemaking, the ground-breaking independent film went on Read More

Poetic License

Crew: Director

Crown Heights

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Howie Mandel

Synopsis: Racial tensions between Hasidic Jews and African-Americans come to a boil in the Crown Heights section of Queens in this powder-keg drama based on real-life events that took place in the summer of 1991. Over the course of three days, the tensions between the borough's racially divided citizens Read More

The Hebrew Hammer

Actors: Adam Goldberg, Judy Greer, Andy Dick, Mario Van Peebles, Peter Coyote

Synopsis: He's hip, he's fly, and he never mixes meat with dairy -- he's the world's first Jewish private eye, and he's out to save the world in this satiric comedy. Mordechai Jefferson Carver (Adam Goldberg) is a super-cool Jewish detective who takes no mess and is always ready to do the right thing for Read More

44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shootout

Actors: Michael Madsen, Ron Livingston, Mario Van Peebles, Andrew Bryniarski, Oleg Taktarov

Synopsis: On February 28, 1997, a pair of heavily armed and heavily armored outlaws named Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. and Emil Matasarenu, who had previously cut a crooked swath throughout the Los Angeles area as "The High Incident Bandits," botched the robbery of a bank in North Hollywood. The confrontation Read More

10,000 Black Men Named George

Actors: Andre Braugher, Charles S. Dutton, Mario Van Peebles, Brock Peters, Carla Brothers

Synopsis: In the 1920s, the rights of American workers to join a labor union was still considered an open question, and African-Americans were routinely denied their civil and economic rights. So in 1925, when journalist and political activist Asa Philip Randolph and railway car porter Ashley Totten formed Read More

Robbery Homicide Division [TV Series]

Actors: Tom Sizemore, Barry "Shabaka" Henley, Klea Scott, David Cubitt, Michael Shamus Wiles

Synopsis: Michael Mann of Miami Vice fame was the principle guiding force behind the CBS cop drama Robbery Homicide Division. In a major casting coup, Mann managed to sign the extremely "hot" film star Tom Sizemore for the lead role of Sam Cole, a hard-nosed LAPD robbery-homicide investigator. As head of a Read More

Ali

Actors: Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx, Jon Voight, Mario Van Peebles, Ron Silver

Synopsis: Notoriously obsessive director Michael Mann and star Will Smith devoted nearly two years and over 100 million dollars from the coffers of Columbia Pictures and other financiers to creating this biography of boxing great Muhammad Ali, which focuses on the ten-year period of 1964-1974. In that time Read More

Guardian

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, James Remar, Ice-T

Synopsis: When the movie opens, John Kross (Mario Van Peebles) is a U.S. soldier on a covert mission deep inside Iraq on the eve of the Gulf War. What he sees from behind a sand dune is some sort of mysterious excavation, but things go badly and Kross is discovered and wounded. He awakens with vague Read More

Sally Hemings: An American Scandal

Actors: Sam Neill, Carmen Ejogo, Diahann Carroll, Mare Winningham, Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: This miniseries details the complex real-life relationship between Thomas Jefferson (Sam Neill), author of the Declaration of Independence and his slave Sally Hemings (Carmen Ejogo). Fuelled by recent DNA evidence of the Hemings-Jefferson relationship, the miniseries sidesteps much of Jefferson's Read More

Judgment Day

Actors: Ice-T, Suzy Amis, Linden Ashby, Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: This sci-fi thriller finds the world in imminent danger when a collision in outer space sends huge pieces of interstellar debris on a path headed straight for Earth. A scientist has designed a system that would stop the largest meteor fragments from striking the earth, but a fanatical religious Read More

Raw Nerve

Actors: Zach Galligan, Nicollette Sheridan, Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: Detective Blair Valdez (Mario Van Peebles), a corrupt loose cannon on the police force, endangers his girlfriend Izabel (Nicollette Sheridan) when police officials -- and deadly serious mobsters -- find out about his ongoing money laundering scheme that is taking profits from both organizations. Read More

Blowback

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, James Remar, Stephen Caffrey

Synopsis: Mario Van Peebles and James Remar star in this action drama in which a police detective learns that a murderer he helped put behind bars has been released from prison. The CIA recruited the felon to work as a hired killer for the federal government, but his superiors dangerously underestimated his Read More

Classified X

Actors: Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: In this medium-length (53 minutes) French-U.S. documentary made for European television, black filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles examines African-American film history. Narrating while clips, stills, and location shots are seen behind him in a rear projection, Van Peebles' commentary covers a wide Read More

Crazy Six

Actors: Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles, Burt Reynolds, Rob Lowe

Synopsis: In this espionage thriller, an endangered European crime lord's failed attempt at gaining power leaves him vulnerable to rivals' assassins. Desperate to preserve his life, he turns to an American agent for help. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Love Kills

Crew: Director, Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Lesley Ann Warren, Daniel Baldwin, Donovan Leitch, Alexis Arquette

Synopsis: New Age masseur Poe Finklestein (Mario Van Peebles) has an appointment at the posh estate of widow Evelyn Heiss (Lesley Ann Warren), who lives with her gay stepson Dominique (Donovan Leitch) and her sister-in-law Alena Heiss (Louise Fletcher). The gardener (Melvin Van Peebles) is a bystander Read More

Killers in the House

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Holly Robinson Peete, Hal Linden, Michael J. Pagan

Synopsis: In this taut drama, a father fights to save his family from the desperate bank robbers who have taken over his newly acquired country home. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Mama Flora's Family

Actors: Cicely Tyson, Queen Latifah, Blair Underwood, Mario Van Peebles, Erika Alexander

Synopsis: This four-hour miniseries is based on author Alex Haley's continuing family saga. Covering the 1920s-1970s, the story centers on Mama Flora, the matriarch of a large black family who is determined to keep her brood together and close to their God during rapidly changing and tempestuous times. Read More

Protector

Actors: Rae Dawn Chong, Ben Gazzara, Mario Van Peebles, Randy Quaid

Synopsis: A police detective gets in over his head after he falls in love with the moll of a recently murdered gangster. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Riot in the Streets

Actors: Luke Perry, Cicely Tyson, Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: This off-beat urban anthology offers four different views of the mayhem and destruction that came from the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The first vignette "Gold Mountain," directed by Galen Yuen, centers on a struggle between a traditional-minded Chinese storekeeper and his increasingly uncontrollable Read More

Los Locos

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Melora Walters, René Auberjonois, Paul Lazar, Danny Trejo

Synopsis: Mario Van Peebles wrote, produced, and starred in this follow-up to his 1993 Western Posse. Chance (Van Peebles) is a cavalry scout in the old west who accidentally gives his battalion wrong directions going into a battle. Not being a forgiving bunch, the soldiers beat Chance, tar and feather him Read More

Stag

Actors: Andrew McCarthy, John Stockwell, Kevin Dillon, Taylor Dayne, Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: A group of ten men come together for a bachelor party that goes horribly wrong in this made-for-TV drama. Mario Van Peebles and John Stockwell star as old friends Michael and Victor, both of them successful, well-off young professionals. The latter is about to be married, so Michael throws him a Read More

Solo

Actors: Jaime Gomez, Mario Van Peebles, Barry Corbin, Bill Sadler, Adrien Brody, Seidy Lopez, Abraham Verduzco

Synopsis: The American military-industrial complex has a blueprint for the perfect mechanical soldier. Unfortunately, the prototype, Solo (Mario Van Peebles), has responded appropriately to his programming (which requires him to reason things out on his own), with results that the designers didn't Read More

Gang in Blue

Crew: Director

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Josh Brolin, J.T. Walsh, Stephen Lang, Cynda Williams

Synopsis: In this highly-charged police drama, Officer Michael Rhoades is becoming increasingly disturbed by the amount of white-on-black violence that has been escalating in his quiet town. He is especially disturbed that much of that interracial brutality is coming from the police. Rhoades calls they FBI Read More

Panther

Crew: Director, Producer

Actors: Kadeem Hardison, Bokeem Woodbine, Joe Don Baker, Courtney Vance, Tyrin Turner

Synopsis: This controversial political drama semi-fictionalizes the history of the radical Black Panther Party, an African-American organization that polarized America from 1966-70. Huey Newton (Marcus Chong) and Bobby Seale (Courtney B. Vance) are a pair of Oakland, California, men who form a new political Read More

Highlander: The Final Dimension

Actors: Christopher Lambert, Mario Van Peebles, Deborah Kara Unger, Mako, Martin Neufeld

Synopsis: Conner MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) returns in this, the third film in the Highlander series. MacLeod is an "Immortal," a 16th century Scottish soldier who has been both blessed and cursed with the gift of eternal life. After the death of his beloved wife (a common occurrence for him, but one Read More

Gunmen

Actors: Christopher Lambert, Mario Van Peebles, Denis Leary, Patrick Stewart, Kadeem Hardison

Synopsis: This film opens with a big fat close-up of a sweaty prisoner with a fly (on a string) crawling on his face. The prisoner quickly pops the fly in his mouth and spits it out. Then he leeringly laughs about it to the prisoner next door. Nope. This is not a bad undiscovered Sergio Leone spaghetti Read More

A Letter to Dad

Actors: John Ashton, Corin Nemec, Thom Mathews, Megan Gallivan, Julie McCullough

Synopsis: A painful childhood still haunts Dan Donahue (Thom Mathews), the man at the heart of this moving drama inspired by real events. He is prepared to get married, but he can't move past the absence of his father. Writing a letter to the man proves to be a catharsis, but the real revelation occurs when Read More

Full Eclipse

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Patsy Kensit, Bruce Payne, Jason Beghe, John Verea

Synopsis: This interesting action-horror film stars Mario Van Peebles as a tough cop who becomes the latest recruit in a secret faction of the police which not only operates on the fringes of the law, but is also composed entirely of werewolves. Horror fans who choose to embrace the fundamental goofiness of Read More

Posse

Crew: Director

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Stephen Baldwin, Charles Lane, Tom "Tiny" Lister, Jr., Big Daddy Kane

Synopsis: Writer, director, and star Mario Van Peebles tried to correct historical misconceptions about African-Americans on the frontier with this action-packed western that's also an homage to spaghetti Westerns. During the Spanish-American War, a squadron of black soldiers led by Jesse Lee (Van Peebles) Read More

Stompin' at the Savoy

Actors: Lynn Whitfield, Vanessa Williams, Jasmine Guy

Synopsis: Originally aired on CBS in 1992, Stompin' at the Savoy was produced and directed by Broadway choreographer and actress Debbie Allen. Set in New York City during the late '30s, the story concerns the economic survival of four young women trying to achieve their dreams at the end of the Harlem Read More

In the Line of Duty: Street War

Actors: Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: After his partner is killed, a police officer's vow of vengeance threatens to expose a cocaine dynasty. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

New Jack City

Crew: Director

Actors: Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles, Allen Payne, Judd Nelson

Synopsis: The ruthless leader of a New York City drug syndicate battles to maintain his power and avoid imprisonment in this fast-moving action drama. While the film's heroes are Scotty (Ice-T) and Nick (Judd Nelson), a pair of tough, streetwise cops, the main focus is their target, drug lord Nino Brown (Wesley Snipes Read More

A Triumph of the Heart: The Ricky Bell Story

Actors: Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: Mario Van Peebles stars as football play Ricky Bell in this made-for-TV biopic. The film touches upon Bell's gridiron accomplishments, then concentrates on the athlete's final years, when he falls victim to a terminal illness. As Bell's physical state deteriorates, he forges a strong friendship Read More

Identity Crisis

Crew: Producer, Screenwriter

Actors: Mario Van Peebles, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Shelley Burch, Richard Fancy, Nicholas Kepros

Synopsis: This hip-hop comedy stars Mario Van Peebles as rapper Chilly D, who becomes possessed by the spirit of outrageous fashion designer Yves Malmaison (Richard Fancy). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide Read More

Blue Bayou

Actors: Mario Van Peebles

Synopsis: Alfre Woodard plays a Los Angeles DA who moves back to her home town of New Orleans. She does this so that her teenaged son (Keith Williams) can be nearer to his estranged dad (Mario van Peebles). No sooner has Woodard arrived in "The Big Easy" than she is swept up in a local sex scandal. While Read More

The Child Saver

Actors: Alfre Woodard, Mario Van Peebles, Deon Richmond, Mike Warren, Martin Balsam

Synopsis: In this thriller, a successful executive risks it all to help a street orphan get disentangled from the world of drugs. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Jaws: The Revenge

Actors: Michael Caine, Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Karen Young

Synopsis: This third sequel to the 1975 mega-hit Jaws returns Lorraine Gary to the role of Ellen Brody, widow of the Roy Scheider character from the first two films. When her son Sean, the current police chief of shark-plagued Amity Island, is killed by the beast, Ellen goes to the Bahamas to comfort her Read More

The Facts of Life Down Under

Actors: Mindy Cohn, Kim Fields, Nancy McKeon, Lisa Whelchel

Synopsis: The made-for-TV Facts of Life Down Under was at once a spin-off of the TV sitcom The Facts of Life and a sequel to the 1982 TV movie The Facts of Life Goes to Paris. In Facts of Life Down Under, Cloris Leachman, who'd earlier replaced Facts of Life's Charlotte Rae as "den mother" to a quartet of Read More

Heartbreak Ridge

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Marsha Mason, Everett McGill, Moses Gunn, Eileen Heckart

Synopsis: Having spent much of his directorial career emulating Don Siegel and John Ford, Clint Eastwood borrows a page from the catalogue of Sam Fuller in Heartbreak Ridge. Eastwood casts himself as an old-fashioned Marine Corps sergeant who is out of step with the new-fashioned military. He returns to his Read More

The Last Resort

Actors: Charles Grodin, Robin Pearson Rose, John Ashton, Ellen Blake, Megan Mullally

Synopsis: George Lollar (Charles Grodin) overrides his wife's judgment and takes his family for a vacation on a sunny Caribbean island that just happens to be on the verge of a revolution. Their hotel is not the usual Hilton on the beach but a pick-up joint for singles where the main activities are sex Read More

3:15 - The Moment of Truth

Actors: Adam Baldwin, Deborah Foreman, René Auberjonois, Ed Lauter, Scott McGinnis

Synopsis: Street gang member Jeff (Adam Baldwin) leaves the organization, seeking out a quieter existence. Meanwhile, gang leader Cinco (Danny De La Paz) and his minions have taken over the local high school, dispensing drugs with impunity. When Cinco is arrested, a rumor spreads that he's been sold out by Read More

The Cosby Show: Clair's Sister

Synopsis: Yvonne Erwin guests as Clair's sister Sarah, who shows up at the Huxtables to announce her engagement. Helpfully, Clair (Phylicia Rashad) and her mother Carrie (Ethel Ayler) volunteer to give Sarah sage advice on married life. Before long, all three women are laughing hysterically--and Cliff (Bill Read More

South Bronx Heroes

Actors: Brendan Ward, Mario Van Peebles, Megan Van Peebles, Melissa Esposito, Martin Zurla

Synopsis: Filmed independently in 1983, Runaways was released in 1985 under two alternate titles, South Bronx Heroes and Revenge of the Innocents. 14-year-old Paul (Brendan Ward) and 11-year-old Michelle (Melissa Esposito) escape the cruelties of foster father Bennett (Martin Zurla). They run off to the Read More

Children of the Night

Synopsis: This drama chronicles the good deeds of a sociology student who after doing research into feminine crimes begins taking in teen-age hookers. It is based on a true story. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Rappin'

Actors: Edye Byrde, Rony Clanton, Charles Flohe, Eriq La Salle, Leo O'Brien

Synopsis: In Rappin', Mario Van Peebles is John Hood, a con who when released from jail goes back to his neighborhood to find his girl shacked up with a nasty gang-leader named Duane (Charles Flohe). Duane is on the take with a corrupt contractor who plans to tear down Hood's neighborhood and he and his Read More

The Cotton Club

Actors: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Lonette McKee, Bob Hoskins

Synopsis: Combining electric song and dance performances with drama (both on and off screen), Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) looks back to the 1920s-1930s peak of the legendary Harlem nightclub where only blacks performed and only whites could sit in the audience. Mixing historical figures Read More

Delivery Boys

Actors: Joss Marcano, Tom Sierchio, Jim Soriero, Nelson Vasquez

Synopsis: In one of the last breakdancing movies of the mid-'80s, two competing breakdancing teams have their eye on a $10,000 prize in an upcoming contest. Three of the dancers on one team work as pizza delivery boys. Mean-spirited Spider (Mario van Peebles) from the opposing team convinces the gullible Read More

The Exterminator 2

Actors: Robert Ginty, Mario Van Peebles, Deborah Geffner, Frankie R. Faison, Scott Randolph

Synopsis: This violent follow-up to the sadistic actioner The Exterminator (1980) again features Johnny Eastland (Robert Ginty), a Vietnam vet who is triggered into vengeful killing when his dancer girlfriend (Deborah Geffner) is first badly beaten and permanently crippled and later murdered by a gang of Read More

Cross Current

Actors: Robert Hooks, Simon Oakland, Jeremy Slate, Robert Wagner

Synopsis: Also known as Cross Current, The Cable Car Murder emulates the 1971 theatrical feature Tick, Tick, Tick by teaming a black homicide lieutenant (Robert Hooks) with a white partner (Jeremy Slate). Simon Oakland costars as the team's apoplectic superior (is there any other kind?) Set in San Read More