Esai Morales

Acting

Esai Morales

Born 1962-10-01 · Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Esai Manuel Morales Jr. (born October 1, 1962) is an American actor. He has had notable roles in  Bad Boys with Sean Penn and La Bamba with Lou Diamond Phillips. His television roles include the PBS 2002 drama series American Family, the Showtime series Resurrection Blvd. (2000–2002), portraying Lt. Tony Rodriguez on NYPD Blue (2001–2003), Joseph Adama in the science fiction series Caprica (2009–2010), Camino del Rio in the Netflix original series Ozark (2017), and the DC Comics supervillain Slade Wilson / Deathstroke in the superhero series Titans (2019). Morales appeared as Gabriel, the main antagonist in the 2023 spy action film Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One opposite Tom Cruise, a role reprised in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning in 2025.

Acting credits

War Machine poster
7.5

On one last grueling mission during Army Ranger training, a combat engineer must lead his unit in a fight against a giant otherworldly killing machine.

War Machine

2026

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning poster
7.2

Ethan Hunt and team continue their search for the terrifying AI known as the Entity — which has infiltrated intelligence networks all over the globe — with the world's governments and a mysterious ghost from Hunt's past on their trail. Joined by new allies and armed with the means to shut the Entity down for good, Hunt is in a race against time to prevent the world as we know it from changing forever.

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning

2025

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One poster
7.5

Ethan Hunt and his IMF team embark on their most dangerous mission yet: To track down a terrifying new weapon that threatens all of humanity before it falls into the wrong hands. With control of the future and the world's fate at stake and dark forces from Ethan's past closing in, a deadly race around the globe begins. Confronted by a mysterious, all-powerful enemy, Ethan must consider that nothing can matter more than his mission—not even the lives of those he cares about most.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One

2023

Bad Boys poster
7.0

Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

Bad Boys

1983

Never Back Down: No Surrender poster
7.1

Picking up after the events of Never Back Down 2, former MMA champion Case Walker is on the comeback trail to become champion once again.

Never Back Down: No Surrender

2016

La Bamba poster
7.3

Los Angeles teenager Ritchie Valens becomes an overnight rock 'n' roll success in 1958, thanks to a love ballad called "Donna" that he wrote for his girlfriend. But as his star rises, Valens has conflicts with his jealous brother, Bob, and becomes haunted by a recurring nightmare of a plane crash just as he begins his first national tour alongside Buddy Holly.

La Bamba

1987

Freejack poster
5.5

Time-traveling bounty hunters find a doomed race-car driver in the past and bring him to 2009 New York, where his mind will be replaced with that of a terminally ill billionaire.

Freejack

1992

SuperFly poster
6.7

Career criminal Youngblood Priest wants out of the Atlanta drug scene, but as he ramps up sales, one little slip up threatens to bring the whole operation down before he can make his exit.

SuperFly

2018

ABC's 50th Anniversary Celebration poster
8.0

A retrospective of the 50-year history of the American Broadcasting Company, showcasing clips from past shows and current programs.

ABC's 50th Anniversary Celebration

2003

Master Gardener poster
6.0

Narvel Roth is a meticulous horticulturist who is devoted to tending the grounds of a beautiful estate and pandering to his employer, the wealthy dowager Mrs. Haverhill. When she demands that he take on her wayward and troubled niece, it unlocks dark secrets from a buried violent past.

Master Gardener

2023

Paid in Full poster
6.9

Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch, goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.

Paid in Full

2002

The Principal poster
6.5

Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.

The Principal

1987

Dark Horse poster
NR

Follows Jair Messias Bolsonaro, a man driven by his political career after disappointment with the direction of his country, in the journey to become the 38th president of Brazil.

Dark Horse

2026

Art of Love poster
3.6

A mysterious, erotic and haunting love story between a writer/professor at Puerto Rico's leading University and an aspiring artist from the immigrant Chinese community.

Art of Love

2021

Cottonmouth poster
5.3

When Ed Dantes is framed and condemned to the tortures of a territorial prison in the 1895, he must learn the ways of the outlaw to escape and exact his revenge.

Cottonmouth

2025

From Dusk Till Dawn: Making the First Season poster
NR

Bank-robbing brothers encounter vengeful lawmen and hungry demons south of the border.

From Dusk Till Dawn: Making the First Season

2014

Crescent City poster
6.2

When a ruthless serial killer terrorizes a small Southern town, everyone becomes a suspect -- including local authorities. As the body count rises and the dark mystery deepens, the chief detective becomes haunted by the horrors of his past.

Crescent City

2024

Jarhead 2: Field of Fire poster
6.2

Battle-scarred and disillusioned by the war, Corporal Chris Merrimette is put in charge of a unit whose next mission is to resupply a remote outpost on the edge of Taliban-controlled territory. While driving through the hostile Helmand province, a Navy SEAL flags down their convoy and enlists the unit on an operation of international importance: they must help an Afghan woman famous for her defiance of the Taliban escape the country. Without tanks or air support, Merrimette and his team will need all the courage and firepower they can muster to fight their way across the war-torn country and shepherd the woman to safety.

Jarhead 2: Field of Fire

2014

Atlas Shrugged: Part II poster
5.2

Railroad owner Dagny Taggart and steel mogul Henry Rearden search desperately for the inventor of a revolutionary motor as the U.S. government continues to spread its control over the national economy.

Atlas Shrugged: Part II

2012

Rapa Nui poster
6.4

Inter-tribal rivalry leads to a competition to erect a huge Maoi statue in record time before Make can take part in the race to retrieve the egg of a Sooty Tern. The reward for winning this race is to rule the island for one year.

Rapa Nui

1994

Spare Parts poster
7.2

With the help of their high school's newest teacher, four Hispanic students form a robotics club. Although they have no experience, the youths set their sights on a national robotics contest. With $800 and parts scavenged from old cars, they build a robot and compete against reigning champion MIT. Along the way, the students learn not only how to build a robot but something far more important: how to forge bonds that will last a lifetime.

Spare Parts

2015

Lethal Seduction poster
3.3

Miranda Wells is an attorney with a sideline in immigration fraud and murder. Miranda's assistant, Carla, is unaware of her criminal activities. Rick Benes, a journalist setting out to expose Miranda, poses as David Lopez, an illegal immigrant, and takes a job in the office. Carla stubbles on incriminating files and Rick Benes pursuit of the story is threatened when he becomes infatuated with Miranda. Carla is attacked and her husband murdered, Miranda is the chief suspect. As the investigation progresses and Carla disappears from hospital, it is clear that Miranda will stop at nothing including murdering again to stay out.

Lethal Seduction

2005

My Family poster
7.4

Traces over three generations an immigrant family's trials, tribulations, tragedies, and triumphs. Maria and Jose, the first generation, come to Los Angeles, meet, marry, face deportation all in the 1930s. They establish their family in East L.A., and their children Chucho, Paco, Memo, Irene, Toni, and Jimmy deal with youth culture and the L.A. police in the '50s. As the second generation become adults in the '60s, the focus shifts to Jimmy, his marriage to Isabel (a Salvadorian refugee), their son, and Jimmy's journey to becoming a responsible parent.

My Family

1995

Fast Food Nation poster
6.1

A dramatised examination of the health issues and social consequences of America's love affair with fast food.

Fast Food Nation

2006

Behind the camera