José Manuel Poncelis

Acting

José Manuel Poncelis

With a career of more than 35 years as a theater, film, and television series actor, he has also worked as a theater director, also venturing into playwriting and production. He has acted in more than 20 films, some of them are: “Marionetas” by Álvaro Curiel, “Polvo” directed by José María Yaspik, “Sueño en otro Idioma” by Director Ernesto Contreras. He has been awarded the Mayahuel 2017 award and as best actor, with the film “Sueño en otro Idioma” at the Guadalajara International Film Festival in 2017 and with the WINSTON-SALEM OUT AT THE MOVIES LGBT FILM SERIES award. In addition to films like “De la Calle”, “La Ley de Heródes”, “Ricochet”, “Pescador” among others. He has participated in series for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, CANAL 11, FOX AND NETFLIX, among which stand out: Sitiados, Hernán, Biografía de una lengua, La Reina Roja, Palenque.

Acting credits

Man on Fire poster
7.5

Jaded ex-CIA operative John Creasy reluctantly accepts a job as the bodyguard for a 10-year-old girl in Mexico City. They clash at first, but eventually bond, and when she's kidnapped he's consumed by fury and will stop at nothing to save her life.

Man on Fire

2004

Tótem poster
6.8

In a bustling Mexican household, seven-year-old Sol is swept up in a whirlwind of preparations for the birthday party for her father, Tona, led by her mother, aunts, and other relatives. As the day goes on, building to an event both anticipated and dreaded, Sol begins to understand the gravity of the celebration this year and watches as her family does the same.

Tótem

2023

Curandero poster
NR

Manuel is desperate to save his wife from death. A mysterious man appears to him one day at church, convincing him to go to a Healer who can help her.

Curandero

2025

¡Que viva México! poster
7.3

After his grandfather's death, a man travels with his wife and kids to his hometown, where chaos ensues with his relatives over the inheritance.

¡Que viva México!

2023

Herod's Law poster
8.0

In the 1940s, a small Mexican town has seen its last three mayors assassinated in rapid succession. A naive janitor is recruited to become the new mayor, and he believes he will modernize the little town and usher in a reign of peace. But the system corrupts him very quickly, and he takes to abusing his power while associating with an unscrupulous assortment of opportunists, hypocrites and criminals.

Herod's Law

1999

I Dream in Another Language poster
7.8

An indigenous language is in peril, as its last two speakers had a quarrel in the past and haven't spoken to each other in over 50 years. Martín, a young linguist, will undertake the challenge of bringing the old friends back together and convincing them to speak once again so he can obtain a recorded registration of the language and study it.

I Dream in Another Language

2017

Cabeza de Vaca poster
6.8

In 1528, a Spanish expedition flounders off the coast of Florida with 600 lives lost. One survivor, Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, roams across the American continent searching for his Spanish comrades. Instead, he discovers the Iguase, an ancient Indian tribe. Over the next eight years, Cabeza de Vaca learns their mystical and mysterious culture, becoming a healer and a leader. But soon this New World collides with the Old World as Spanish conquistadors seek to enslave the Indians, and Cabeza de Vaca must confront his own people and his past.

Cabeza de Vaca

1991

Ricochet poster
5.5

A simple man in a small and quiet town faces a painful episode that reveals the most primitive and not always explainable impulses that can turn a simple good man into a cold murderer.

Ricochet

2020

I Don't Want to Be Dust poster
6.0

Bego, a housewife in a mid-life crisis, lives bored and afraid of being inconsequential, however, her life evolves into a mysterious game once she enters into a cult that preaches three days of darkness...

I Don't Want to Be Dust

2022

The Tiger of Santa Julia poster
7.0

An army deserter turned bandit robs from thieves to give the money to the poor. He was famous for being caught by the police "with his pants down"

The Tiger of Santa Julia

2002

Aztech poster
5.2

Fragments of a meteor crash in Mexico and United States. Thirteen stories in different spaces and times happen in places of collisions .

Aztech

2020

Cero y van cuatro poster
7.8

Four stories... one city. A dark comedy about crime in the big city: EL TORZON - two friends are smoking grass in their car, when they're caught by a corrupt Judicial Police Officer; VIDA EXPRESS - a wealthy businesswoman is kidnapped and her deadbeat husband has to come up with the money; BARBACOA DE CHIVO - an angry mob mistakes a college professor with a burglar and decide to lynch him in front of the church; COMIDA PARA PERROS - a bumbling thief tries to rob a restaurant

Cero y van cuatro

2004

Marionette poster
7.2

Ernesto, a Cuban actor who decides to audition in Mexico, is stranded in the gigantic city when he fails to achieve a leading role in an important play. Facing the dilemma of returning defeated to his home, he accidentally meets Belén in the subway, a spontaneous actress who tells stories or lies in exchange for some coins.

Marionette

2020

Hijos del viento poster
4.1

As part of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, Rodrigo, a Spanish shipwreck falls in love with Tizcuitl, the young and beautiful Aztec daughter of Nezuhual, king of Tlacopan, powerful under the emperor Moctezuma.

Hijos del viento

2000

Under California: The Limit of Time poster
6.2

Damian is a married artist living in Los Angeles with his wife. After Damian accidentally hits a woman with his car and flees the scene, he seeks atonement and travels alone to Mexico, both to find peace and to reconnect with his family roots. Assisted by local guide Arce, Damian locates his grandmother's resting place and searches for redemption through a long trek in the arid wilderness of his ancestral land.

Under California: The Limit of Time

1998

Disappear Completely poster
6.8

An ambitious and insensitive tabloid crime photographer falls victim to a mysterious illness that makes him lose, one by one, his five senses.

Disappear Completely

2024

Streeters poster
7.1

Authentic and committed, moving and stormy drama of street kids from Mexico City. Wonderful adaptation of successful play about street kids who have more trouble with corrupt cops, than with dirty and heavy work.

Streeters

2001

Powder poster
7.4

After a ten year absence, El Chato returns to San Ignacio, his hometown, in order to retrieve a shipment of cocaine that was dropped there by a cartel pilot.

Powder

2019

Never on a Sunday poster
5.8

A middle-class Mexican family is forced to hire the services of a funeral home with a dubious reputation, without imagining the danger that the owner of the business will put them through.

Never on a Sunday

2006

La noche de las flores poster
3.0

The story of a wooing in which the stepdaughter, Elena, seduces her stepmother. A love story that is unpredictable for both, where reality overcomes their principles and traditions.

La noche de las flores

2011

National Geographic: Pyramids of Death poster
6.8

They are some of the biggest pyramids on the planet, millions of tons of stone and earth towering above the landscape in a display of massive wealth and power. But it wasn't the pharaohs that built these pyramids. This is the majestic ancient city of Teotihuacán, Mexico, home to one of the most powerful civilizations of its time. But why, around 750 AD, did the advanced civilization that created Teotihuacán suddenly vanish? The identities of its founders, the language they spoke and even the original name of the city are all unknown. DNA analysis of bodies from Teotihuacán shows they weren't Mayan, Incan or Aztec, but an entirely different civilization. It was assumed to have been a peaceful, utopian society, but the latest discoveries are revealing a much darker scenario. In the depths of Teotihuacán's pyramids, experts have uncovered vault after vault filled with curious human remains.

National Geographic: Pyramids of Death

2005

Crazy Carnival poster
4.6

In a seedy brothel, their frustrations parade: A poet who has never published, a revolutionary who came late to history, a provocative angel, a bureaucrat with delusions of a dancer, a greedy Chinese man and his timorous wife, Monica, a prostitute with low professional esteem, a group of prostitutes of dubious sensuality and, finally, a priest with a stench of holiness and another with redeeming instincts. But a stranger with the air of a princess appears, and upsets the balance of the establishment.

Crazy Carnival

2006

Diente por diente poster
5.5

Pablo Kramsky, a crime reporter for a tabloid newspaper is the victim of a home invasion. A colleague offers him a gun for self-defense, and this leads Kramsky to kill a person when he feels endangered. Kramsky is not brilliant at his job, but when he writes an article about a possible vigilante taking justice into his own hands, he gains the recognition of his superior and the admiration of his coworkers. Thus, Kramsky repeats the formula, committing crimes and writing about them, creating a crime fighting national hero.

Diente por diente

2013

Ik Dietrick Fon, the hidden sound of things poster
5.0

Ik Dietrick Fon is an uncommon story in which love and mystery come together to make way for an unusual relationship between a man and a woman.

Ik Dietrick Fon, the hidden sound of things

2015