Adan Canto’s best movies and TV shows reveal a very talented actor who showed immense promise before his untimely death in 2024. Canto was born in Mexico and got his start in music, performing traditional boleros and mariachi music into his teenage years. After working as a musician in San Antonio and Mexico City, he started appearing in TV commercials. After being cast in the stage play adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar’s All About My Mother, he turned his sights to acting.
His career lasted just over a decade, starting with smaller Spanish-language movies and TV shows in 2009 and 2010 before getting his first major Hollywood role in the TV series thriller The Following. After a small role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, he mostly appeared in smaller films and some big-name TV shows, working with everyone from Halle Berry and Kevin Bacon to Don Johnson, Keifer Sutherland, and Mel Gibson. Adan Canto passed away in 2024 at 42 following a battle with cancer.
10 2 Hearts (2020)
Adan Canto Plays Jorge Bolivar
2 Hearts PG-13RomanceDrama
2 Hearts is a romance-drama film that intertwines two love stories spanning different generations and settings. Directed by Lance Hool, the film follows the journeys of Chris, played by Jacob Elordi, and Jorge, portrayed by Adan Canto. Their paths intersect in unexpected ways, exploring themes of love, destiny, and the impact of life-altering decisions. Revelations and connections lead to profound consequences for both couples.
Director Lance Hool Release Date October 16, 2020 Cast Jacob Elordi , Adan Canto , Tiera Skovbye , Radha Mitchell , Kari Matchett Runtime 100 Minutes
2 Hearts is a romantic drama movie from 2020 that stars Adan Canto as Jorge Bolivar. As a child, he collapsed while playing soccer and had to have an operation on his lungs, and doctors said he might not live to the age of 20. The film is about two love stories, one between the narrator (Chris), who meets and falls in love with a young woman named Sam. The other is the story of Jorge and his relationship with Leslie, a flight attendant. Chris narrates how their love stories and lives interconnect.
The audience Popcornmeter score is a very high 87% fresh.
This is a melodrama with a very depressing ending, though, so viewers should be warned heading in that the movie goes in some dark directions. It ended up as a box office failure, with a $15 million budget, while only grossing $1.3 million. However, it has a much better reputation for viewers who discovered it later on streaming. Critics panned 2 Hearts, giving it a 17% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience Popcornmeter score is a very high 87% fresh.
9 Agent Game (2022)
Adan Canto Plays Kavinsky
The last movie that Adan Canto appeared in before his death was the 2022 spy thriller Agent Game. Dermot Mulroney stars in the film as Harris, a CIA officer who detains and relocates foreign nationals for interrogation purposes. However, when someone kills his superior, he ends up being blamed for the death of a detainee, and he has to go on the run from a group of fellow operatives, all led by a ruthless double agent. Mel Gibson also stars in the movie as a high-ranking CIA official.
Adan Canto appears in the film as one of the operatives, along with names like Katie Cassidy, Rhys Coiro, and Annie Ilonzeh. This was a thriller that critics hated, with a rotten 21% Rotten Tomatoes score, but audiences were a little more favorable about it, ranking at 69% on the Popcornmeter. Most of the reviewers write that the film is a throwback spy thriller but is heavy on action and light on the espionage storylines, meant more as a guilty pleasure than anything else.
8 Second Chance (2016)
Adan Canto Plays Connor Graff
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Released in 2016, Second Chance is a Fox television series inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein. The series stars Philip Baker Hall as a 75-year-old former Washington sheriff who was corrupt and forced to retire. However, after his murder, he is brought back in the body of a young man (Robert Kazinsky) by the tech genius Goodwin twins (Dilshad Vadsaria and Adhir Kalyan). While he has a chance to relive his life, his temptations seem to lead him down the wrong path again.
Adan Canto stars as Connor Graff, a character who appears in five episodes of the series. He is a character on a mission to destroy the Goodwin twins and ends up as one of the key villains of the series. Critics panned the series, with a 30% rotten score on Rotten Tomatoes, saying it has interesting ideas but didn’t quite pull it off. The audience score is higher at 70%, but despite this, the viewership numbers were poor, and it ended up being reduced to 11 episodes before being canceled. However, it’s an interesting look at second chances, and Canto shines in this villainous role.
7 Bruised (2020)
Adan Canto Plays Desi
Bruised RSportDrama Where to Watch
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After a successful screening at the Toronto International Film Festival in late 2020, Bruised was picked up by Netflix and added to the platform’s extensive library the following year. The movie tells the story of a disgraced MMA fighter as she attempts to conquer her demons and marks the directorial debut of Academy Award winner Halle Berry, who also plays the lead.
Director Halle Berry Release Date November 24, 2021 Distributor(s) Netflix Cast Nikolai Nikolaef , Stephen McKinley Henderson , Valentina Shevchenko , Lela Loren , Shamier Anderson , Adan Canto , Sheila Atim , Halle Berry , Danny Boyd Jr. Runtime 129 minutes
Halle Berry made her directorial debut in the 2020 sports drama Bruised. The film stars Berry as Jackie “Pretty Bull” Justice, a former UFC fighter four years after forfeiting a major fight. Now working as a house cleaner and drinking more to cope with life, her boyfriend/manager tries to convince her to return to fighting. The story then follows her as she reclaims the son she hasn’t seen since he was an infant and tries to find a way to come back and fight, while rediscovering who she is meant to be.
Adan Canto stars as Desi, Jackie’s manager/boyfriend who is trying to help her make her comeback early in the movie. He is the catalyst for her starting her comeback, but their relationship is not meant to last. Netflix gained the rights to the film and released it at the Toronto International Film Festival and AFI Fest before dropping it on the streaming service. Bruised has a 50% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it earned four NAACP Image Awards nominations.
6 Blood & Oil (2015)
Adan Canto Plays A.J. Menendez
In 2015, Adan Canto joined the cast of an all-star TV show that only lasted for one season. Blood & Oil aired on ABC as a Primetime soap opera about a young couple who move to a fictitious town after the biggest oil discovery in American history. The young couple are Billy (Chace Crawford) and Cody (Rebecca Rittenhouse) seeking to find their own plot of land to cash in on the oil boom. However, they soon find oil baron Hap Briggs (Don Johnson) is setting up to buy it all for himself.
Adan Canto stars in the series as a regular cast member named Ahmed “A.J.” Menendez, someone who is selling secrets to rival oil companies, but finds out that this puts him and his family in grave danger. The first season had a 62% Rotten Tomatoes score, but the ratings dropped, and the original 13-episode order was dropped to 10 before ABC canceled the series. However, his performance here helped Canto get noticed and earned him much bigger TV roles starting the next year.
5 Mixology (2014)
Adan Canto Plays Dominic
In 2014, Adan Canto took on a main role in the ABC sitcom Mixology. The series was a unique one, as the 13-episode season took place entirely over one night in a Manhattan bar called “Mix.” The series sees five men and five women meeting up at the bar and each episode shows two or three characters from these 10 as they meet each other for the first time, and all these stories lead to the finale.
Canto was the lead in the fifth episode, “Fab & Jessica & Dominic” and the ninth, “Dominic & Kacey.”
Adan Canto is one of the guys, Dominic, a bartender who is always one of the hottest guys in the room and has several random sexual relationships. He was part of most episodes but Canto was the lead in the fifth episode, “Fab & Jessica & Dominic” and the ninth, “Dominic & Kacey.” The series only had a 33% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, but a very high 85% score from the audience’s Popcornmeter, showing a clear divide between critics and fans.
4 The Cleaning Lady (2022-2024)
Adan Canto Plays Arman Morales
The Cleaning Lady TV-MACrimeDramaThriller Where to Watch
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The Cleaning Lady is a drama series centered on Thony De La Rosa, a Cambodian doctor who becomes an undocumented immigrant in the United States. Forced to work as a cleaning lady, she navigates complicated situations while using her medical expertise. The series explores themes of survival, resilience, and the lengths one goes to protect their family. Starring Elodie Yung, the show delves into the hidden struggles of those living on the margins of society.
Cast Elodie Yung , Adan Canto , Martha Millan , Sean Lew , Sebastien LaSalle , Faith Bryant , Valentino LaSalle , Oliver Hudson Release Date January 3, 2022 Seasons 2 Creator(s) Miranda Kwok
The last television show that Adan Canto starred in before his death was the Fox crime drama series The Cleaning Lady. The series stars Élodie Yung as Thony De La Rosa, a former surgeon living in Las Vegas with an expired visa with her son, who has a rare medical disorder that needs cutting-edge surgery. After she witnesses a murder, she is offered a job as a cleaner and doctor within Arman Morales’s criminal organization, which could help her make the money needed to save her son.
The third season ended up dedicated to Canto, with a title card in the premiere paying tribute to the actor.
Adan Canto stars as Arman Morales, the gangster who offers to protect Thony if she works for him as a cleaner. He appeared in the first two seasons of the show, but Canto’s declining health as he battled appendiceal cancer didn’t allow him to return for The Cleaning Lady’s third season. The third season ended up dedicated to Canto, with a title card in the premiere paying tribute to the actor. The Cleaning Lady has a 60% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
3 Designated Survivor (2016-2019)
Adan Canto Plays Aaron Shore
Designated Survivor Drama Where to Watch
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Starring Kiefer Sutherland, Designated Survivor is a Thriller and Political Drama television series that was created by David Guggenheim and ran for three seasons. The premise sees an explosion destroying the United States Capitol building, which causes the death of the President and each in the line of leadership succession except Thomas Kirkman, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The journey chronicles Kirkman’s reign as president as he attempts to navigate a world he is very inexerperienced with.
Cast Kiefer Sutherland , Adan Canto Release Date September 21, 2016 Seasons 3 Directors Kiefer Sutherland
The first multi-season show that Adan Canto enjoyed a starring role in was Designated Survivor. One year after his appearance in Blood & Oil and premiering the same year as Second Chace, Canto picked up a role in the ABC political thriller Designated Survivor. This series saw an explosion killing the President of the United States and most of the people in the presidential line of succession. Tom Kirkman (Kiefer Sutherland), the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was the designated survivor.
Related 10 Best Things About The Pilot Of Designated Survivor
While Designated Survivor may not have had the kind of Netflix success that many were hoping for, the show was strong, even during its pilot.
He is immediately named the President of the United States and struggles to find a way to help keep the country together after the tragedy. Canto stars as Aaron Shore, the White House Deputy Chief-of-Staff who was one of the first people to show support of Kitkman and eventually became the new White House Chief of Staff. The show lasted three seasons, with the third airing on Netflix. The first season was certified fresh at 87%, although the next two seasons dropped in ratings.
2 X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)
Adan Canto Plays Sunspot
X-Men: Days of Future Past pg-13Action Sci-Fi Where to Watch
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The fifth installment in the X-Men movie franchise, X-Men: Days of Future Past, is a time-traveling superhero film that takes place between two points in time in the series. With mutants (and almost humans) on the brink of extinction due to the Sentinel robot menace, the last remnants of the X-Men send Logan back in time to stop the assassination of the man who created the Sentinels to save their future from certain doom.
Director Bryan Singer Release Date May 22, 2014 Distributor(s) 20th Century Cast Hugh Jackman , James McAvoy , Michael Fassbender , Jennifer Lawrence , Patrick Stewart Runtime 132minutes
There were a lot of complaints about the X-Men movies in the prequel series. However, the second film in the prequels is widely considered one of the best X-Men movies ever made. Only Logan has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score (93%) and the 90% fresh score for X-Men: Days of Future Past is higher than any other X-Men team movie. This film retold the comic book storyline about an alternate Earth in the multiverse where the Sentinels destroyed almost all superheroes and most mutants.
The film shows the X-Men sending Wolverine back in time to stop the tragedy that caused the Sentinels’ creation to save the future. It also brought together he original X-Men cast and the prequel cast to all appear in one movie together. There were also several new mutants introduced in the future scenes, including Adan Canto as Roberto Decosta, also known as Sunspot. Fans got to know Sunspot much better in the X-Men 97 animated series on Disney+.
1 The Following (2013)
Adan Canto Plays Paul Torres
The Following Drama Where to Watch
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The Following centers on Kevin Bacon’s Ryan Hardy, who hunts down a manipulative serial killer named Joe Carroll (James Purefoy) that has amassed a cult following willing to do anything he tells them to. The series was well received but was eventually canceled by Fox in 2015 after three seasons.
Cast Kevin Bacon Release Date January 21, 2013 Seasons 3 Directors Kevin Bacon
The first major television series that Adan Canto got to appear in was the crime drama The Following in 2013. The series followed Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) as he put a team together to hunt down and recapture a serial killer named Joe Carroll (James Purefoy). The series lasted for three seasons and 45 episodes and each season saw Ryan have to go deep into the dark mind of Joe to stop him and protect the world from his evil plans.
Adan Canto appeared in the first season as Paul Torres, one of Joe Carroll’s followers. He worked alongside Jacob and Emma, who were two of the lead villains working to help Joe achieve his plans. He makes it through four episodes before his death at Hardy’s hands. The first season of The Following had a 63% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 71% Popcornmeter score. It also won a Saturn Award for Kevin Bacon for its first season and three more nominations for the second.