Mario Cain Van Peebles (born January 15, 1957) is a Mexican-born American actor and director. He is the son of Melvin Van Peebles, whom he played in the 2003 biopic Baadasssss!, which he also co-wrote, produced, and directed. He also starred in Heartbreak Ridge (1986), New Jack City (1991), and USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (2016), the latter two of which he had directed.

Mario Van Peebles was born on January 15, 1957, in Mexico City, Mexico to Melvin Van Peebles and Maria Marx. He received his B. A. at Columbia University and was also invited to speak as the Class Day Speaker as part of the annual commencement exercises in 2021.

Van Peebles' first screen appearance was in 1968, in the soap opera One Life to Live.^{[citation needed]}

In 1971, he appeared in the film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Melvin Van Peebles directed and played the lead role, and Mario played his father's character as a child. The film became a hit and a historical American film, because it was widely credited with showing Hollywood that a viable black audience existed and thus influenced the creation of the Blaxploitation genre. That year, Mario acted in a TV movie called Crosscurrent.^{[citation needed]}

For the rest of the decade, he did not appear in other productions.

In 1981, Van Peebles acted in the miniseries The Sophisticated Gents.^{[citation needed]}

He appeared in the action film Exterminator 2 (1984), as the main villain against its protagonist, played by Robert Ginty.^{[citation needed]} When the production wrapped, the producers were unhappy and wanted a re-shoot. They replaced the original director, but the main star was no longer available so they made Van Peebles' character more central.

That same year, Van Peebles appeared as a dancer in Francis Ford Coppola's movie The Cotton Club.^{[citation needed]}