Shantel VanSanten's 10 Best Movies And TV Shows

Shantel VanSanten got her start in the entertainment industry as a model, but most of her best movies and TV shows lean toward dramas. VanSanten began modeling at 15 years old and landed her first acting role in 1999 - providing the English dub for a character in the Japanese series Street Angel Kurumi. Despite that, VanSanten did not start acting regularly until 2005 and has not slowed down since.

VanSanten is likely best known by TV fans for having multiple roles in CW dramas aimed at teens. While the CW really gave the actor her big break, she has expanded her work significantly to include action series, police procedurals, love stories, and even a superhero satire. VanSanten’s best roles show her humanizing characters and stories in extreme situations as well as showcasing her dramatic abilities.

10 Love Blossoms (2017)

As Violet Chappel

Love Blossoms

TV Movie

Romance

Drama

Release Date: February 18, 2017
Runtime: 84 minutes

Cast

See All

Victor Webster
Declan Granger
Shantel VanSanten
Violet Chappel
Callum Blue
Stefan Loxley
Brittany Bristow
Kimmy Spencer

Many actors who got their big breaks on the CW in the 2000s have gone on to appear in Hallmark movies. It could be because Hallmark and the CW both, for many of their television projects, film in and around in Vancouver. VanSanten, who appeared in several shows on the CW, has also appeared in Hallmark movies like this one.

Love Blossoms sees a young woman take over her father’s business after he passes. He is a perfumer, and as she discovers, he was in the middle of finishing up a big contract, one she plans on finishing for him. The trouble is that his newest perfume is missing an ingredient and the pages are missing from his notes that would feature it. She decides to hire a florist who has a nose for different flower scents to help her so she can get the job done before the competition swoops in to steal it.

VanSanten is particularly charming in this role. She is a character who wants to live up to her father’s legacy, and it’s easy to watch her want to achieve making the perfect perfume and fall in love at the same time. It’s also a fairly unique premise for a Hallmark movie.

9 The Final Destination (2009)

As Lori

It can be hard to come into an established horror franchise in an installment that is seen by cynics as a cheap money-grab. That’s what VanSanten did with this movie, which is the fourth installment of the Final Destination franchise. The big difference for this movie from the others is that it hit theaters in 3-D.

The movie sees a group of people hunted by Death. Everyone is at an auto racing event when one of them has a vision of a tragic accident that would kill them all. The group spends the rest of the movie trying to outrun death, even turning on one another as they do so.

VanSanten plays the girlfriend of the man who originally has the vision and figures out how to see Death’s omens around them. She is one of the characters that makes it very early to the end, which means the audience gets more time with VanSanten than they do most of the other actors. VanSanten’s character tries her best to save others, and she makes for a great addition to the franchise even if critics were hard on this installment.

8 The Messengers (2015)

As Vera Buckley

The series has an interesting premise, and it feels like it might have worked great as an arc for a series like Supernatural...

When The Messengers originally premiered on the CW, it did so to mixed reviews. The series was canceled in the middle of the season, but the network did allow it to air all of the episodes filmed for the first season, showing the audience just what could have been on the way.

The Messengers follows a group of people who die for a few moments when a meteor falls to Earth. When they become alive again, they each have special gifts that allow them to go up against the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They are actually Biblical Messengers, meant to fight for humanity.

The series has an interesting premise, and it feels like it might have worked great as an arc for a series like Supernatural (and, in fact, the long-running show did do something similar). VanSanten plays one of the Messengers, an astronomer whose son was kidnapped seven years earlier, and who develops the ability of spirit-walking. VanSanten has to walk a fine line of being desperate to find her son, being an accomplished professional, and mothering other members of the Messengers. She does it admirablly in a show that very few people watched.

7 The Boys (2019-2024)

As Becca Butcher

Though The Boys is one of the most unique superhero series of the modern day and certainly one of the best, it does not rank among the top five of VanSanten’s movies and TV shows because her role in the series is one that serves to fill a lot of superhero story tropes.

The Boys is a satirical take on the superhero genre. It demonstrates that heroes are not always who the public thinks they are and features a look inside the carefully cultivated images of heroes who may actually be more violent and unlikable than people know.

VanSanten plays Becca, the wife of the superhuman known as Butcher. She, however, spends much of the series in hiding in a gated community run by Vought International taking care of her son, who is also the son of Homelander, who manipulated her into sleeping with him. Becca spends most of her story worried about how her actions will affect Butcher, and then, is killed off when trying to get her son back. While VanSanten’s performance is great in a lauded show, her actual role leaves much to be desired.

6 Shooter (2016-2019)

As Julie Swagger

At first, Julie often falls into action-movie tropes for wives of heroes.... As the show goes on, however, Julie becomes an active participant...

Shooter is a unique series because it has seen an adaptation in the past. The show is inspired by the novels about the character Bob Lee Swagger. A movie was previously made based on the novels. The television series, however, gets to deliver longer arcs for all of the characters involved in the story.

Shooter follows Ryan Phillippe as Swagger, a retired military sniper who previously worked on secret missions and special ops. The series sees Swagger pulled back into a secret operation and framed. His work eventually seeps over into his family life as well as he has to go on the run repeatedly and his wife and daughter end up in danger and in the middle of some of his operations.

VanSanten plays Swagger’s wife. At first, Julie often falls into action-movie tropes for wives of heroes. She is in danger because of his job, and he has to find a way to save her. As the show goes on, however, Julie becomes an active participant in saving the life of her daughter, in searching for her husband, and more. VanSanten also gets to play Julie’s trauma as a result of some of the things she does during the series, giving her the chance to demonstrate her dramatic skills far beyond being a damsel in distress.

5 Timeless (2016)

As Kate Drummond

She only appears in the pilot episode, but her character helps to establish the rules of the show’s universe.

Timeless is an impressive series that only lasted for two seasons, but it did get a wrap-up special. The series was almost universally praised for its creativity and performances, but it was also incredibly expensive to produce, which meant the planned story was shortened to those two seasons.

Timeless sees a historian, a former soldier, and an engineer become a team of time travelers. They are put together to stop another man from changing history who stole an experimental time machine from the same institution that gathers them together. Each episode sees them witness a different historical event, try to prevent history from changing the future, and slowly unravel a conspiracy that they are all connected to.

VanSanten is not a series regular in Timeless. She only appears in the pilot episode, but her character helps to establish the rules of the show’s universe. Kate Drummond is a journalist at the launch of the Hindenburg, someone who is killed in the original timeline in the disaster of it exploding. In the show, however, history is changed slightly, allowing her to live a little longer.

Kate is vivacious, making an impression on the team with her sincerity and her courage. They want her to live, but they understand they cannot change the past and VanSanten sells the tragedy behind the sci-fi elements and the unfolding lore of the show.

The first season of Timeless was nominated for a Saturn Award.

4 The Flash (2015-2016)

At Patty Spivot

The Flash is often seen as one of the best series in the Arrowverse on the CW. Because of the nature of the show, with its many crossovers with other series and its multiple arcs in a season, the show sees a lot of recurring characters come and go. Patty Spivot only appears in season 2.

The Flash focuses more on the metahumans of the Arrowverse than any of the other shows in the same universe. Kicking off the events of the show is Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) ending up in a coma from lightning and a particle accelerator, and when he emerges, he has superspeed. He becomes the titular hero, working in forensics for the police department by day and acting as a superhero who saves the world by night.

VanSanten’s Spivot is introduced in the second season as a police officer with a particular grudge against metahumans, but that grudge is because she is stubbornly focused on getting justice for her father, who was killed by a metahuman. She is smart, rivaling Barry’s knowledge in chemistry, biology, and physics, and has an eye for detail.

Not only is Spivot a great police officer (and eventually, detective), but she is also kind and compassionate, making her almost too perfect of a character. VanSanten, however, plays up Spivot’s stubborn streak, giving her an asset that can also be perceived as a flaw. She is perfect in the role, and it’s a shame that the character did not have a larger role in the Arrowverse.

3 The FBI Franchise (2022-)

As Special Agent Nina Chase

The FBI series provide for a big portion of Shantel VanSanten’s recent movies and television shows. She has appeared in all three shows in the universe as the same character, beginning as a guest star in one show and expanding to become a main cast member in another.

Each of the FBI shows are police procedurals with each episode centered on a different case. Longer arcs exist throughout the different shows, and crossovers exist among them as well. The series that VanSanten is a series regular on is FBI: Most Wanted. This particular part of the franchise spotlights a fugitive task force for the FBI who work out of New York.

When VanSanten made her debut in the franchise, her character was filling in for another agent while they recovered from an injury. That appears to have been a way to test introducing a new character to the ensemble, since it did not take long for the writers to bring her back to the franchise, and eventually make her a regular. Here, her character is adept at many different investigative tracks, often works undercover, and is a mom. She gets to play with a variety of emotional performances while in a franchise that has a clear and successful formula.

2 For All Mankind (2019-2023)

As Karen Baldwin

VanSanten’s character gets a great arc that deals with becoming more than simply someone’s wife...

Alternative history series and movies have become a great way to draw in an audience. The audience loves to see what little differences have happened, or what big ones would happen, if one thing about the history they know has been changed. While one popular take on alternative history makes the Germans the “winners” of World War II, For All Mankind examines the space race. It posits what would happen if it never ended and the Soviet Union pulled ahead of the United States.

VanSanten stars in the series for the first three seasons as the wife of one of the astronauts at the center of the story. Her character is one that lives in a near-constant state of anxiety, going from being a worried Navy wife to a worried NASA wife. She also experiments with drugs, has an affair, and loses a child (though not necessarily in that order). VanSanten’s character gets a great arc that deals with becoming more than simply someone’s wife as she finds herself and what makes her happy.

Even in the moments in which her character does something horrible, VanSanten makes her likable. Karen Baldwin is a flawed woman who grows exponentially because of the things she goes through.

The series won a Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Television Series during VanSanten’s time on the show.

1 One Tree Hill (2009-2012)

As Quinn James

Shantel VanSanten’s best-known role is that of Quinn in the final three seasons of One Tree Hill. While some might not think the CW’s teen soap should be her best TV show, the series allows Van Santen to showcase all of the abilities that are then used in other projects.

One Tree Hill starts as a high school drama centered on two estranged half-brothers who end up on the same basketball team. Their teammates, friends, and family make up the main cast of the show. About half-way through the series, the show took a time jump to propel the main characters beyond their college years, allowing them to age up with their audience and introduce more adult conflicts into the show.

VanSanten’s Quinn is main character Haley’s (Bethany Joy Lenz) oldest sister and a photographer. She only moves back to Tree Hill in season 7 because it is when her marriage has ended. She slowly becomes part of Haley’s friend group, but during her time on the show, VanSanten gets to explore themes involving grief, survival, family conflict, and explore a slow-burn love story.

Shantel VanSanten’s best project so far is One Tree Hill.

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