(Updated 01/02/2025)
For years, the phrase "video game movie" was always followed by the word "curse." Turns out that a great video game movie is pretty difficult to make! Just ask Nintendo's Mario, the central figure of the first big video game movie — and the center of one of 2023's biggest new titles, too. A good game often prioritizes interactivity over character development, while movies, which can't be interactive, rely on change and character evolution. For a long time, producers had trouble making those two polarized approaches to storytelling work together.
Filmmakers have begun to crack the game-to-movie code, however. In the last few years, we've seen a few great adaptations, which suggests the future may be bright for movies based on video games. Mario got a new lease on movie life, and HBO's impressive serialized adaptation of "The Last of Us" captivated audiences for nine episodes.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 was a hit, and this year will also see the release of at least three more video game movies, including a sequel to FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S. Here's a rundown of all the new video game movies.
Video Game Movies to See in Movie Theaters Now
Sonic the Hedgehog 3
Sonic, Knuckles and Tails reunite to battle Shadow, a mysterious new enemy with powers unlike anything they've faced before. With their abilities outmatched in every way, they seek out an unlikely alliance to stop Shadow and protect the planet. Read more about SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 here.
Video Game Movies Coming to Movie Theaters in 2025
These movies are still to come in 2025.
A Minecraft Movie
Welcome to the world of Minecraft, where creativity doesn’t just help you craft, it’s essential to one’s survival! Four misfits—Garrett “The Garbage Man” Garrison (Jason Momoa), Henry (Sebastian Eugene Hansen), Natalie (Emma Myers) and Dawn (Danielle Brooks) — find themselves struggling with ordinary problems when they are suddenly pulled through a mysterious portal into the Overworld: a bizarre, cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. To get back home, they’ll have to master this world (and protect it from evil things like Piglins and Zombies, too) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter, Steve (Jack Black). Together, their adventure will challenge all five to be bold and to reconnect with the qualities that make each of them uniquely creative…the very skills they need to thrive back in the real world. Read more about A MINECRAFT MOVIE here. [April 4]
Until Dawn
One year after her sister Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the nightmare again and again - only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn. Read more about UNTIL DAWN here. [April 25]
Mortal Kombat 2
The sequel to the 2021 MORTAL KOMBAT features a massive returning cast, including Lewis Tan as Cole Young, Karl Urban as Johnny Cage, Jessica McNamee as Sonya Blade, Mehcad Brooks as Jackson "Jax" Briggs, Tadanobu Asano as Raiden, Ludi Lin as Liu Kang, Chin Han as Shang Tsung, Joe Taslim as Bi-Han, and Hiroyuki Sanada as Scorpion. We don't know much about the story of MK2 yet, but we'll see more as we get deeper into 2025. [October 24]
Five Nights at Freddy's 2
Scott Cawthorn, the man behind the "Five Nights at Freddy's" game series, and writer/producer of the first movie, has said that the sequel will adapt the game "Five Nights at Freddy's 2," which isn't much of a surprise. The movie began filming in fall of 2024 with the Jim Henson Creature Shop once again working on the large animatronic characters — and building more of them, based on comments from returning star Josh Hutcherson. [December 5]
The HIstory of the Video Game Movie
The video game movie has a long history that isn't always rich. It took quite a while for things to really click — even though both SUPER MARIO BROS. and MORTAL KOMBAT, which suffered bad reviews at the time, have more to offer than reputation would suggest.
Super Mario Bros. (1993)
For better or worse, it all started here. Video games had been popular for more than a decade before Nintendo's main mascot hit the big screen in 1993, with Bob Hoskins playing the adventurous plumber, Mario. Beyond some of the basic ideas and character names, SUPER MARIO BROS. really isn't much like the pipe-jumping, world-bouncing games it is based on — and yet the movie is still entertaining, in part because it is such a strange relic of a time when the rules of video game adaptations had not yet been written.
Mortal Kombat (1995)
Two years after SUPER MARIO BROS., fighting game mania helped usher MORTAL KOMBAT onto the big screen. It helps that the structure of the original games is a lot like the setup for many martial arts tournament movies, from ENTER THE DRAGON to BLOODSPORT. With over-the-top characters and effects, this movie is a fast-paced brawler that certainly looks like the games, even if the headline-grabbing gore of the arcade experience was significantly toned down. This was the second movie from a relatively new indie British director, Paul W.S. Anderson, who would go on to be a video game movie mainstay thanks to the next movie on our list.
Resident Evil (2002)
Paul WS Anderson liked the original "Resident Evil" game so much that he wrote a script he later called a "rip-off" of the games — and which was eventually re-written to be the first RESIDENT EVIL movie. Despite the film being only very loosely based on the games, it did something few other game-based movies have managed, by creating a character — Alice, played by Milla Jovovich — that fans were eager to see back on the big screen. Five sequels followed between 2004 and 2016, all featuring Jovovich, making RESIDENT EVIL one of the most successful game-to-film adaptations.
Tomb Raider (2018)
Yes, there were two TOMB RAIDER movies starring Angelina Jolie in the 2000s, and Jolie was a great choice to play adventurer Lara Croft. The 2018 "reboot," simply called TOMB RAIDER, and based on the 2013 game reboot, is one of the most faithful game-to-movie adaptations. With Alicia Vikander in the lead role, the movie is energetic and muscular, with thrilling and gritty action sequences that capture the game's spirit while also standing on their own as achievements in the cinematic realm.
The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019)
Since the ANGRY BIRDS movies are based on mobile games they aren't always included in conversations about video game adaptations. That's too bad because, for a long time, THE ANGRY BIRDS MOVIE 2 might have been the best movie based on a video game. That's no small feat when the game upon which the movie is based doesn't really have characters or even a story. That's where the filmmakers stepped in, and for this sequel writers Peter Ackerman, Eyal Podell, Jonathon E. Stewart and director Thurop Van Orman came up with a wacky, wild adventure that always makes. time to treat birds and pigs like people — in between the entertainingly chaotic setpieces.
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Sonic the Hedgehog came around just a few years after Mario did, and fans waited a long time for his big-screen debut. The movie reflects an unprecedented turn of events, where the filmmakers and studio revamped the Sonic character design based on fan feedback. That revision, combined with the boundless energy of star Jim Carrey, turned SONIC into an effective and fast-paced adaptation of the games. It's funny, engaging escapism, which is precisely what helped turn the Sonic games into hits in the first place.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
While the first movie based on Nintendo's signature character Mario was not what the video game company asked for, this one was different. Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment (makers of the MINIONS movies) teamed up for THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE, and the result was a worldwide smash which wiped away any lingering bad memories of that original Mario movie.
Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)
This adaptation of the wildly popular survival horror game series follows a troubled security guard as he begins working at the shuttered Freddy Fazbear's Pizza — a business that once entertained children with a cadre of musical animatronic mascots. While spending his first night on the job, however, he begins to realize there's a lot more going on at Freddy's than he originally thought. FNAF proved that a game's dedicated fanbase could be more than enough to turn a movie into a hit.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE opens on April 4.
All images courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.