There are plenty of video games that have been adapted into movies, like Super Mario Bros. (2023), Gran Turismo, Super Mario Bros. (1993 and 2023), and Uncharted. And you typically know what you’re getting into when you step into the theater for these movies–outside of 1993’s Super Mario Bros., which somehow has an even more bizarre director’s cut that exists.
However, what’s more exciting is when you step into the theater, sit down in your chair, and find out the characters in the movie are playing a video game you’re aware of. “Hey, I know that game!” You’ll feel like the king of the world. Throughout the decades, there have been plenty of video games highlighted in some pretty famous movies. While they all can’t be covered here, we picked out 15 of the most notable ones.
1. Super Mario Bros. 3 (The Wizard)
The Wizard was an ’80s movie that was a very long commercial for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It featured the (so bad) Power Glove, Double Dragon, and that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game that had water level where you defuse bombs. There was also a slew of other NES products. At the heart, the story was about two brothers and a runaway girl hitchhiking to California so the little brother could win a Nintendo tournament.
If you were a kid when this movie came out, then you went bonkers for it. However, objectively, it is a terrible film. But that’s not really the point. The point of the movie was that it debuted Super Mario Bros. 3, and that blew everyone’s mind. This was the first time anyone saw that game. You can’t do that today. Everyone knows every little thing about a game before it debuts. The Wizard was the movie that showed off the new Mario game to the world, and it was awesome–not the movie, the game. I’m not going to explain what Mario 3 is because you like video games.
2. Rad Mobile (Encino Man)
Finally, after years and years of writing on GameSpot, I get to talk about Encino Man. It’s about time. This classic ’90s movie stars Sean Astin (Yes, THAT Sean Astin), Brendan Fraser (Yep), and Pauly Shore (This tracks for the ’90s). Fraser plays a caveman who was frozen thousands of years ago and finds himself thawed out from a block of ice in Encino, California in the ’90s.
Now that you have an understanding of this story, let’s talk about the game featured in the movie. At one point, Link (Fraser) is at an ice skating rink and becomes obsessed with the arcade game Rad Mobile. A successor to OutRun, Sega’s driving game has you racing across the country against other people. The arcade game had you sitting in a faux race car with a steering wheel, so who wouldn’t be obsessed with it? A few years after its arcade release, it was ported to Sega Saturn with the new title Gale Racer.
3. Surf Ninjas (Surf Ninjas)
How do we, the collective human race, unpack the movie and video game known as Surf Ninjas? Let’s begin with the movie. Surf Ninjas is a lot like the arcade game Bad Dudes vs. DragonNinja with surfing. A couple of surfer brothers (Adam and Johnny) find their father is attacked by ninjas. Joined by their friend Iggy, the three try to overthrow a very M. Bison-like character, and Adam finds out that a Game Gear game he has tells the future, and that their lives have become a video game. Yes, this is a lot to take in, and it’s not even fully describing the wackiness of this plot. Oh, Iggy is played by Rob Schneider, who even in 1993, felt too old to be friends with these teenagers.
There’s a Surf Ninjas games, which were on Game Gear and Sega Genesis, were based on the film and created in conjunction with the movie. It actually came out before the movie was released. It’s a very bland side-scrolling beat-’em-up, but that was kind of expected considering how bland the movie was.
4. Rampage (8-Bit Christmas)
8-Bit Christmas is the best contemporary holiday movie, with Violent Night a close second place. The story follows a father (Jake) telling his daughter about his journey to get a Nintendo Entertainment System during the ’80s. It’s nostalgia for older millennials at its best. It contains things many of us old people are familiar with: that rich kid who was the first person on the block to have an NES, the jerk who put the light gun right against the TV, and the stupidity of the Power Glove (It’s so bad).
While there is a lot of talk about Nintendo–and gameplay from a fighting game that doesn’t exist–there is an exciting moment when Jake heads into a department store and plays Rampage. Jack is having the game of his life, smashing all those buildings and tanks as a giant monster. It’s a moment we’ve all felt and remembered–the first time we picked up a controller for the first console you played. It’s a moment that feels like you’re at home.
5. Rampage (Rampage)
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson starred in a movie called Rampage, loosely based on the video game. The previously mentioned Brahma Bull plays Davis Okoye, a primatologist. He has a close relationship with an albino gorilla. Canisters from space arrive on Earth and turn the gorilla giant, and a crocodile and wolf in other places get similarly massive. All the giant monsters fight each other.
In the movie Rampage, the arcade game Rampage can be spotted in the background in one moment of the movie, specifically in the office of the movie’s villains, who unleashed the animals on the world. That clearly means the villains stole their entire evil plot from an old arcade game.
6. Donkey Kong (Pixels)
Right up there with Ready Player One, Pixels is a movie where things happen on a screen and people yell, “Hey, I recognize that from pop culture!” There are a ton of video game references and imagery in this movie. A group of former child video game champions are now adults and are drafted by the government to stop these giant video game monsters. Sure. That’s a movie plot. Why not?
The whole mess of a plot contained within this movie begins with a Donkey Kong tournament. We get the humble beginnings of these heroes as we see them compete against each other in Donkey Kong. However, obviously, one of them is a cheater and won the whole thing. And honestly, that’s the most interesting part of the movie–the first 10 minutes. But stick around for the end of the film, where Josh Gad fathers children with Q-Bert, something that seriously happens in this movie.
7. Wild Gunman (Back to the Future 2)
The future of 2015 is a hard concept to wrap your head around. What will the future look like? Will Pizza Hut pizzas be dehydrated and have to be put in a food hydrator, how many picture-in-picture channels can you put on at the same time, and will business folks have to wear two ties at the same time? That’s a good chunk of the plot of Back to the Future 2. Well, that and Biff Tannen creating an alternate timeline by giving his younger self a book with all the winners of all the sporting events, making young Biff win all the sporting bets.
In this movie, Marty McFly, in the far-off year 2015, heads to a cafe, aptly named Cafe ’80s–the era McFly is from–and he sees a video game in the background, with two kids trying to understand it. Once it’s working, we find it’s Wild Gunman, a lightgun game for the NES. Marty kicks some butt in the game, and one of the children thinks the game is for babies because you have to use your hands. Also, one of those kids is Elijah Wood.
8. Gears of War (The Hurt Locker)
The Hurt Locker was beloved by many people and won six Oscars during the 2010 Academy Awards. The film follows a Sergeant who works with the bomb squad during the Iraq war. He takes some risks during combat, not playing by the typical rules, and the soldiers working under him have trouble following his orders.
During one scene in the movie, two soldiers are spotted playing Gears of War, the third-person shooter where you play as Marcus Fenix, who is a soldier tasked with taking down the alien Locust Horde. It was released in 2006 and is available for Xbox 360 and PC, as well as Xbox One and Series X|S via the Ultimate Edition.
9. The Getaway: Black Monday (Superbad)
Superbad is one of those films that defines a generation. It follows three nerdy kids who go on a journey to get beer for a high school party. One of the teens goes on a romp with the local police, while the other two go to a party for people in their 20s, and do what they can to save the party–which apparently already had a ton of liquor at it.
During one of the opening scenes, Michael Cera’s character is playing a third-person shooter, which looks like it could have been created for the movie, based on how basic and boring it looks. It’s actually a real game called The Getaway: Black Monday, and it’s a sequel to the Guy Ritchie-style The Getaway. And according to GameSpot’s review, it was a boring game, with Alex Navarro stating, “Like its predecessor, The Getaway: Black Monday is a “love it or hate it” kind of game, though it definitely leans a little more toward the “hate it” side of the scale. The Getaway got away with a lot of what it did mainly because it tried to do something fairly original, whereas with the sequel, there aren’t many new elements, and what is new isn’t exceptionally meaningful in the grand scheme of the game.”
10. TimeSplitters 2 (Shaun of the Dead)
Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead is a top-tier zombie movie, and a hilarious comedy at the same time.The film follows two down-on-their-luck fellas who find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and want to make their way to a pub.
Early on in the film, Shaun (Simon Pegg) finds Ed (Nick Frost) playing TimeSplitters 2. Released in 2002, this first person shooter was available for PS2 and GameCube. The game takes place in the 2040s and humans are warring with aliens. Of course, a lot of the fun in the game came from multiplayer mode, where you could shoot your friends in the same room–because that’s how multiplayer worked back then.
11. Karate Champ (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)
Although Ferris Bueller’s Day Off arrived in theaters during the mid-’80s, it’s one of those classic movies you don’t have to explain: but we will anyway. The film follows the titular high schooler, who fakes being sick, so he can play hooky from school. This brings him on a string of larger-than-life adventures as the school principal tries to catch him escaping learning.
There is one scene that takes place in an arcade where a woman with a Ferris Bueller-type haircut is standing right in front of the game Karate Champ. This was a game from 1984 and a very early 2D fighting game. You play as a Karate Champ, working your way up the ladder by fighting in tournaments. It’s the last few minutes of The Karate Kid but as a whole game.
12. Shadow of the Colossus (Reign Over Me)
Reign Over Me is a bit of a depressing film that helped show Adam Sandler’s range. The previously mentioned Sandler plays a depressed and shut-in man who lost his family during the September 11 attacks. He reconnects with an old roommate, and because of this rekindled friendship, it helps the man who lost everything move forward in his life.
In a scene, Sandler’s character and his friend, played by Don Cheadle, are playing the 2005 game Shadow of the Colossus. It’s a third-person platformer where you have to search out giant creatures, climb them, and kill them. The game mixes puzzles in an open world, as the player utilizes the environment and their ability to spot places to climb a giant monster, in order to beat the game.
13. Mortal Kombat: Deception (40-Year-Old Virgin)
You may have fond memories of 40-Year-Old Virgin, but boy-oh-boy, it hasn’t aged well. If you’re not familiar, it’s about a man–who happens to be 40–whose coworkers find out that this 40-year-old has never had sex, and his “friends” make it their mission to get him to lose his virginity.
During one sequence that hasn’t aged incredibly well, Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd’s characters are playing Mortal Kombat: Deception. This is the sixth main game in the Mortal Kombat series. The game was available on the Xbox, PS2, and GameCube. It’s Mortal Kombat, so you know what this game is. It’s a brutal fighting game with wild fatalities and a complex, interweaving story filled with a ton of lore.
14. NHL ’94 (Swingers)
If I had a nickel for every time someone said “baby” or someone was called “money” in Swingers, I’d have like $50, probably. The babies in Swingers that were so money were enjoying their lives in that movie, which revolves around a group of unemployed actors living in Hollywood, during that weird moment in American culture when people were so hyped for new bands playing old swing music. Remember Squirrel Nut Zippers?
Well, in the movie, a very important game is being played. A little preamble though. NHL ’94–and ’95, I might add–is an exceptionally wonderful game and one of the most memorable sports games of its time. Appearing on both the SNES and Sega Genesis (It was better on Genesis), there’s a scene in Swingers where some of the characters are playing the game. It’s the most money moment of the game… baby.
15. NHL All Star Hockey (Mallrats)
Mallrats is a classic Gen X comedy written and directed by Kevin Smith. It’s about two friends who have their relationships with their girlfriends fall apart and the journey they go on to win them back–most of which happens in the mall. Of course, there are plenty of dick jokes along the way. It’s a fun Kevin Smith movie. It’s what you expect. Obviously, these two young men want to change themselves for the better
In one of those Mandela Effect moments, NHL ’94/’95 isn’t being played during the event where Brodie has his heart broken by his girlfriend Rene. It’s actually NHL All Star Hockey, as lead character Brodie picks playing as the Hartford Whalers over hanging out with his girlfriend, as she’s tired of hiding their relationship, and she wants to meet his parents. He’s up 12 to 2 against the Canucks, and he’s very excited to reign havoc upon the city of Vancouver.