The 10 most entertaining video game films

There are quite a handful of films based on video games. Almost none of them are good.

The first live-action film adaptation of a game was 1993’s Super Mario Bros., which is a thoroughly bizarre and misguided attempt to take the things people love and recognize from the iconic platforming series and twist them into something that fits into a weird live-action story. It is very bad, and video game films haven’t really improved much since then.

Honestly, there are almost no films based on games that stand out above the rest. There are bad ones, and there are ones that are less bad, with maybe one or two exceptions depending on personal taste.

So what follows is not a list of the best video game films. It is a list of recommendations for bad and passable video game films that are entertaining to watch — because they’re flashy, or they stand as solid representations of a particular game series, or they’re just so wild you can’t look away.

Here are the 10 most entertaining video game films ever made (in no particular order).

1. Warcraft

Image: universal pictures

Is Warcraft a good movie? I really don’t know. I’m a lifelong fan of the games, and when I first watched Warcraft, I was torn between enjoying the faux live-action orcs and action and being bored by the dialogue and plot. Lore in Warcraft is a lot. In fact, it’s too much, and I generally find it’s best not to dig too deep into it, which I feel this movie did — but by only focusing on such a specific piece of the games’ history, it comes across a bit empty.

Still, this film is a lot of fun to look at, and the story is easy enough to follow without needing to read three textbooks-worth of Warcraft lore. You can’t go wrong with seeing big CG orcs battling against humans.

Rent it on: YouTube

2. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider — The Cradle of Life 

Yep, that’s the title. I say pick a lane and call it either Lara Croft or Tomb Raider, but it is what it is.

Starring Angelina Jolie, this early 2000s adventure film is about as cliched as you can get, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a lot of fun. Jolie’s performance is generally great, and so are the locations she explores across the globe, looking for treasure while running into things like “that’s not a treasure, that’s a map to a real treasure” or the classic “people have gone in there but no one has ever returned.” Guess what, the white British lady goes in there and manages to return. The whole movie oozes with a kind of colonialist vibe, but the narrative manages to come up just short of rooting for British people stealing from African tribes, which is technically a good thing. There will be groans, but it’s ultimately a fun, dumb film.

Rent it on: YouTube

3. Resident Evil: Retribution

Every Resident Evil film is pretty bad in its own way. While they stem from the action/horror game series, Resident Evil films quickly establish themselves as something very different from the games. They are very action-heavy and over-the-top.

Retribution feels like all of that coming to a head. What should have been the last film of the series brings so many characters — including video game favorites that hadn’t been in any films yet and even some old characters who were killed off — together in this jam-packed wonder of a video game movie. The action sequences are great, starting with the first scene: an explosive fight between the star Milla Jovovich and some helicopters that plays in reverse.

Rent it on: YouTube

4. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

It’s easy to forget that Jake Gyllenhaal starred in a Prince of Persia. This film is historically dubious even just from an architectural standpoint. It tells the story of a prince many centuries ago in Persia who comes in possession of a dagger that allows its wielder to travel back and forward in time in one-minute increments. It’s a very interesting gameplay element in the game of the same name and manages to somehow be interesting in the context of this movie adaptation.

Sure, the acting isn’t great (this seems to be a theme here), and the plot is little more than a quest for a McGuffin, but it has plenty of swashbuckling action to carry it forward to the end. Healthy reminder: Yes, that’s a bunch of white people playing Persian characters, and that’s not OK.

Rent it on: YouTube

5. Street Fighter

This 1994 video game movie take on the 1v1 fighting game series of the same name is pretty ridiculous. But then again, so is the game. The plot in this movie is pretty basic: Various characters from the game find their paths crossing in the fictional region of Shandaloo. But the acting and action sequences are all so over-the-top and bad that it’s fun just to sit back and enjoy the wild ride. 

Somehow they manage to stuff pretty much all of the series’ early fighters into this hodgepodge of a movie, including Chun-Li, Ken, Ryu, M. Bison, Sagat, Vega, E. Honda, Cammy, and even Blanka. It’s hard to pick what’s the best/worst part of this movie. Jean-Claude Van Damme playing Guile? Bison blowing up a boat and yelling “Game over”?

Rent it on: YouTube

6. Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog tries to embody the spirit of the video games and other Sonic media with its youth-oriented humor and game-y plot, but ultimately the film fails to be very interesting. In a weird way, it’s fun to watch, though. Maybe it has to do with the voice acting by Ben Schwartz as Sonic and Jim Carrey’s infectious performance as Dr. Robotnik.

This movie is very clearly meant to be viewed by children, as the theme of friendship is delivered with such a heavy hand it’s almost laughable. It also seems to be quite a cash grab. Try to count how many product placements are in this movie; it will be a fun game to play. Yes, Sonic the Hedgehog is kind of terrible, but it’s also charming.

Rent it on: YouTube

7. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is an oddity among video game films in that it was actually made by people who were close to the original project. Character designer and recent FFVII Remake director Tetsuya Nomura helmed the animated film, while the script was handled by OG co-writer Kuzushige Nojima. 

Is the end result a good movie? Most definitely not, but the official sequel to FFVII at least has the good sense to fill itself with fan-servicey anime extravagance. The story is an incomprehensible mess, but there’s a scene where a bad guy summons Bahamut and the original game’s cast pulls off a big team-up attack to kill it. The entire second half is one big, excessive fight scene that culminates in Cloud fighting Sephiroth again, set to a shredding guitar version of the original final boss music. It rules. —Alex Perry, tech reporter

Rent it on: Amazon Prime Video

8. Super Mario Bros.

The movie begins 65 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Yep, that’s right. A narrator postulates that while a giant meteorite may have destroyed all the dinosaurs on the earth as we know it, maybe it also made way for an alternate dimension where dinosaurs still roamed alive. What follows is a very engaging but also very weird tale of Mario and Luigi, two plumbers from Brooklyn, going on a bizarre inter-dimensional adventure against the fascist Koopa regime to rescue Princess Daisy. Everything about it screams early ’90s, and while it’s deeply rooted in Super Mario lore, it somehow manages to not feel like a Super Mario movie at all, which is impressive in its own right.

It’s easy to see why this movie has garnered a cult following. It’s wildly unpredictable and full of weird developments, great one-liners, and strange moments that are hard not to react to audibly.

Buy it from: Amazon

9. Detective Pikachu

Detective Pikachu stands out on this list because it is actually a good movie. Based on the mystery video game of the same name, it stars a teen and a Pikachu that can talk for some reason, and the two of them team up to solve a deep mystery involving a substance that makes pokémon hyper-aggressive and, somewhat disturbingly, some human/pokémon experiments.

This movie has a great story and arc, but perhaps the coolest thing about it is the way it finally brings pokémon to life. It’s a live action movie and it’s packed with pokémon as they would appear if they lived in the real world. For any fan of the Pokémon franchise, it’s kind of affirming to see so many creatures represented in this city where humans and pokémon coexist. Oh, and the twist at the end is great.

Watch it on: HBO Max

10. Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat is the most video gamey of all video game films. Instead of trying to take the gory fighting game and morph it to fit into a movie, it took the medium of film and morphed it into something that feels like a game. It includes famous lines from the games like “Finish him” and “fatality” and doesn’t bat at an eye at including the games’ weird, supernatural characters.

The plot involves a tournament called Mortal Kombat which decides the fate of earth. If people from earth lose 10 consecutive times, an invasion will begin and humans will essentially be doomed. It’s wild, but it’s straight-forward. This movie is full of great fights and awful effects that add some unintended humor to this otherwise action-heavy movie. It’s very self-aware and proud of its roots, something that other video game films should all aspire to be.

Watch it on: Netflix