10 Notable Video Game Movies

Think about movies based on video games, and you’ll be thinking of movies that are pretty…meh. They almost never live up to their video game inspirations, and there have actually been a fair few of them released when you stop and think about it. Today, I bring you a list of 10 Notable Video Game Movies – notable for various reasons, whether they are ground breaking, really good,really bad or more. This list is in no particular order but feel free to let us know what you think in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter.

10 – Warcraft (June 10, 2016)

From Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures, 2016 brought us Warcraft – based on the World of Warcraft games. Starring such names as Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton and Ben Foster I’m including this film on the list to start with as (at the time of writing) it’s the highest grossing video game related movie ever, raking in over $433million – despite its savage reviews including a dismal 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

9 – Postal (July 21, 2007)

Yep. In case you missed it, there was a film adaptation of the classic Postal, and following on from Warcraft being the highest grossing video game movie to date, I thought I’d follow with Postal as the lowest grossing video game movie of all time (to date) with an abysmal $146,741 take. It’s an awful amount especially considering the film’s budget was $15million. So it didn’t even make back 10% of what it cost to make. Postal only achieved 8% on Rotten Tomatoes.

8 – Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (July 11, 2001)

With a cast of actors including James Woods, Donald Sutherland, Steve Buscemi and Alec Baldwin and a budget hitting $137million, a lot was riding on Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within to be quite the success, and although it didn’t break even (grossing just over $85million), I’ve included it on this list as the film that has the highest rating of all video game movies on Rotten Tomatoes, with a comparatively lofty score of 44%.

7 – Alone in the Dark (January 25, 2005)

Following on from the current theme, if Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was the highest rated video game movie on Rotten Tomatoes, we must now move onto the worst rated video game movie on Rotten Tomatoes. With only 1%, we have Alone in the Dark. Starring Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff and….oh Tara Reid. Widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, it certain can hold claim to that crown with regards to video game movies.

6 – Doom (October 21, 2005)

Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Karl Urban, the movie adaptation of Doom was pretty underwhelming to be honest, with Johnson still a relative newcomer to movies and the overall film being a bit all over the place, although the film made a profit, it only scored 19% on Rotten Tomatoes. The reason I’ve added it here however, is that it was the first time a decent lengthed sequence in a major movie has been shot from the First Person perspective – in homage to the infamous game franchise.

5 – The Angry Birds Movie (May 20th, 2016)

That’s right – I went there, and with good reason. I’ve included The Angry Birds Movie for the reason that it’s a movie that grossed over $347million and was based entirely on a free-to-play mobile game. As far as I’m aware (please correct me if I’m wrong) it’s the only video game movie not based on a “traditional” game. It’s the second highest grossing video game movie and also the second highest rated video game movie ever made (to date), with a score of 42% on Rotten Tomatoes.

4 – Street Fighter (December 23rd, 1994)

Ahh Street Fighter. One of the first video game movies (but not the first…), and starring everyone’s favorite Belgian – Jean-Claude Van Damme, alongside the late Raul Julia and the very much Australian (like our resident Editor in Chief, Bella Ryse) Kylie Minogue. This film makes the list as the first video game movie to have one of its stars be nominated for a serious award, with Raul Julia’s portrayal of M. Bison being widely praised and earning him a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Unfortunately, Julia died 2 months before the films release from Bowel Cancer.

3 – Mortal Kombat (August 18, 1995)

So now we move onto 1995’s Mortal Kombat, which is seen as a bit of a cult classic now. The reason for this movie being on the list is that it was the first video game movie to gross over $100million ($122million to be a bit more precise) and until Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, was the highest rated video game movie ever made…of all 7 of them, with an overall score of 34% on Rotten Tomatoes.

2 – Resident Evil Franchise (2002 – 2017)

Yes, I know. It’s strictly speaking not “a film” in the singular sense and one of them hasn’t even been released yet, but the whole franchise needs to be included because it is just that. A franchise of Resident Evil movies. Yes, there are a couple of Tomb Raider films, with another in development, and there are a couple of Hitman films as well, but there are currently 5 released Resident Evil films with a 6th to be released next year. With total box office takings of over $817million, the franchise of films are an undoubted success, with Milla Jovovich starring throughout the franchise, it’s the undoubted runaway success story (regardless of the Rotten Tomato scores) of the video game movie world.

1 – Super Mario Bros (May 28, 1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtMZKYnLg5c

Come on, there couldn’t be anything else to finish this list off. The video game movie that started it all, and created a template of how not to do it in the process, Super Mario Bros was so far away from what the games are it’s quite embarrassing. Despite this, it was nominated for 2 Saturn Awards for Best Costume and Best Make-Up, but it was still critically slammed, only making just under $21million but with a budget of $48 million it was also made at a massive loss. However, in spite of the fact it doesn’t portray the world of Super Mario that we know and love, it does have quite the cult following to the point that it has a fan-made sequel comic, a fan-run website and was even released on Blu-ray in the UK.

So there we go, 10 Notable Video Game Movies just for you. If you would like to let us know of any other films that you feel should have been included, let us know in the comments below, the RGM Forums or on Twitter.