•
Tron (1982) – Directed by
Steven Lisberger. Kevin Flynn, an
arcade game designer, gets digitized into the video game world he created and has to fight his way back to the real world. The movie coincided with the release of the successful
Tron video game. •
Nightmares (1983) – Directed by
Joseph Sargent. The segment "Bishop of Battle" stars
Emilio Estevez as a video game wizard who breaks into the arcade at night to get to the 13th level, in doing so he becomes part of the game. •
WarGames (1983) – Directed by
John Badham. Computer hacker breaks into military intelligence computer to play games, which almost starts a thermonuclear war. •
Joysticks (1983) – Directed by
Greydon Clark. When a top local businessman and his two bumbling nephews try to shut down the town's only video arcade, arcade employees and patrons fight back. •
Cloak & Dagger (1984) – Directed by
Richard Franklin. A young boy has secret plans given to him in the form of a video game cartridge, which he must protect from spies. •
The Last Starfighter (1984) – Directed by
Nick Castle. A boy, who is very good at a video game in his trailer park, finds himself recruited to be a pilot for an alien defense force just like the game he plays. •
The Dungeonmaster (1985) – Directed by
Charles Band and
Ted Nicolaou. A computer whiz is drawn into a series of realistic simulations by a demonic wizard who considers him a worthy adversary. Armed with his wrist-mounted X-CaliBR8 computer, he must solve the puzzles and rescue his girlfriend. •
Hollywood Zap! (1986) – Directed by David Cohen. A bored clerk decides to quit his job and travel to Hollywood, California to fulfill his dreams and to find his missing father. He chooses a hustler as his traveling companion, but both of them experience disillusionment during their quest. •
Kung Fu Master (1988) – Directed by
Agnès Varda. A love story between a 40-year-old woman (
Jane Birkin) and a 15-year-old boy addicted to the arcade game
Kung-Fu Master. •
The Wizard (1989) – Directed by
Todd Holland. A boy with mental problems decides to run away to compete in a video game contest and his brother helps him hitchhike to the tournament. Features numerous
NES video games, primarily
Super Mario Bros. 3 before its American release. • ''
(1989) – Directed by Jun Ichikawa. A group of kids become transfixed from a recently released video game Legend Of Life King IV
, a parody of Dragon Quest III''. •
The Lawnmower Man (1992) – Directed by
Brett Leonard. A mentally handicapped man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science and
virtual reality. •
Arcade (1993) – Directed by
Albert Pyun. A teenager has to battle inside of a deadly virtual reality video game, to save her friends. •
Brainscan (1994) – Directed by
John Flynn. A teenager is sent a mysterious computer game that uses hypnosis to make the game the most horrifying experience imaginable. He stops playing, only to find evidence that the murders depicted in the game actually happened. •
Nirvana (1997) – Directed by
Gabriele Salvatores. A computer game designer finds that his latest video game has a virus which has given consciousness to the main character of the game, Solo. •
eXistenZ (1999) – Directed by
David Cronenberg. A game designer finds herself targeted by assassins while playing a virtual reality game of her own creation. •
How to Make a Monster (2001) – Directed by
George Huang. An evil video game comes to life and hunts the group of developers. •
Avalon (2001) – Directed by
Mamoru Oshii. Science fiction film centered on a war-themed, virtual reality
MMO under the same title. •
Game Over (2003) – Directed by
Jason Bourque. Uses footage from five different
Digital Pictures games. •
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003) – Directed by
Robert Rodriguez. Carmen Cortez is caught in a virtual reality game designed by their new nemesis, the Toymaker. Juni, her little brother, goes into the game to save her as well as beta players and the world. •
GameBox 1.0 (2004) – Directed by David Hillenbrand and Scott Hillenbrand. A video game tester must fight to escape from a video game that has become all too real. • ''
Satan's Little Helper'' (2004) – Directed by
Jeff Lieberman. A nine-year old gamer mistakes a costumed killer for a video game version of the Devil. •
Devour (2005) – Directed by David Winkler. A college student is under the demonic influence of an online game. •
Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) – Directed by Rick Bota. Features a MMORPG based on the
Hellraiser mythology. • ''
Grandma's Boy'' (2006) – Directed by
Nicholaus Goossen. A 35-year-old game tester develops a game in secret only to have someone at work try to steal it. •
Stay Alive (2006) – Directed by
William Brent Bell. Friends start dying just like they did in a video game they all played. •
Ben X (2007) – Directed by
Nic Balthazar. The main character Ben is an autistic boy obsessed with an
MMORPG called
ArchLord. He plays the game to escape being bullied and has one online friend named Scarlite. He considers suicide until he meets Scarlite in person. •
Press Start (2007) – Directed by Ed Glaser. Average suburban youth Zack Nimbus is recruited by an ill-tempered ninja and a tough-as-nails space soldier to save the world from a tyrannical, but comically insecure, sorcerer. References to many classic video games. •
WarGames: The Dead Code (2008) – Directed by
Stuart Gillard. Is a sequel to
WarGames. •
Gamer (2009) – Directed by
Mark Neveldine and
Brian Taylor. A man has to save humanity from being enslaved by an MMO. •
Assault Girls (2009) – Directed by
Mamoru Oshii. Three girls in an MMO team up to win a boss battle. •
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) – Directed by
Edgar Wright. Is an action comedy film rife with video game references and plot
conceit similar to
fighting games. •
Tron: Legacy (2010) – Directed by
Joseph Kosinski. Kevin Flynn's son Sam finds his missing father in a new version of the virtual game world and has a similar journey as his father did fighting to get back to reality. •
Black Heaven (2010) – Directed by
Gilles Marchand. An innocent young man becomes enamored with a mysterious girl. He is lured into "Black Hole" – a dark, obscure video game world of avatars with deadly serious intentions in the real world. •
RPG Metanoia (2010) – Directed by Luis C. Suárez. Is a Philippine animated
adventure film in which a
MMORPG called Metanoia gets infected by a virus which affects the online world, and a young player goes on a journey to save the online world and prevent it from taking over the offline world. •
Best Player (2011) – Directed by Richard Amberg. Is a comedy film about two gamers. •
Ra.One (2011) – Directed by Anubhav Amant. Is an Indian
Bollywood superhero film, where a
video game developer creates an unstoppable villain for his son which becomes all too real. •
.hack//The Movie (2012) – Directed by
Hiroshi Matsuyama. Is a Japanese
anime film based on
.hack, a franchise of anime, video games, novels and
manga that debuted in 2002, about a virtual reality
MMORPG. •
Wreck-It Ralph (2012) – Directed by
Rich Moore. An
arcade game villain who dreams of being a hero decides to leave his game to become one. Features cameos by multiple licensed video game characters like
Sonic the Hedgehog,
Pac-Man,
Ryu,
Bowser, and many more. •
Noobz (2012) – Directed by Blake Freeman. A motley crew of gamers participate in a video game competition. •
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014) – Directed by
James Rolfe and Kevin Finn. This film is based on the web series of the
same name, it tells us about the Nerd's long journey to discover the secrets of the
cartridges of
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial video game for the
Atari 2600, considered the worst videogame of all time, buried in the desert of
New Mexico. •
Pixels (2015) – Directed by
Chris Columbus. When aliens misinterpret video-feeds of
Arcade video games and console games as a declaration of war, they attack the Earth, using the games as models for their various assaults to fight aliens such as
Donkey Kong,
Space Invaders and
Pac-Man. •
Beta Test (2016) – Directed by Nicholas Gyeney. A gamer discovers that events in a new video game are being mirrored in the real world, and joins forces with the game's protagonist to unravel the conspiracy. •
The Warriors Gate (2016) – Directed by
Matthias Hoene. An avid game is transported to a parallel dimension. •
Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale (2017) – Directed by
Tomohiko Itō. Is a Japanese anime film based on
Sword Art Online, a novel, manga and anime franchise that debuted in 2002, about a virtual reality MMO, with
Ordinal Scale being about an
augmented reality MMO. •
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) – Directed by
Jake Kasdan. Teenagers find a vintage video game version of
Jumanji and get sucked into its jungle setting. •
eHero (2018) – Directed by Joseph Procopio. An up-and-coming video gamer and his team must overcome a fiery gaming superstar, as well as their own battling egos, to win the ultimate video game championship. •
Good Game: The Beginning (2018) – Directed by
Umut Aral. An underdog
Esports team that competes in a
League of Legends tournament •
Ready Player One (2018) – Directed by
Steven Spielberg. Based on the 2011
novel of the same name, it is set in a
dystopian future and is about the search for an
easter egg in a virtual reality game called
Oasis. •
Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) – Directed by Rich Moore and
Phil Johnston. Sequel to
Wreck-It Ralph, and part of the
Wreck-It Ralph franchise. •
Serenity (2019) – Directed by
Steven Knight. Midway through the film, it is revealed that the story is occurring inside a virtual world. • ''The King's Avatar: For the Glory'' (2019) – Directed by Zhiwei Deng and Juansheng Shi. Animated film based on the
Chinese web novel of the same name. •
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) – Directed by
Jake Kasdan. Sequel to
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle. •
Fearless (2020) – Directed by
Cory Edwards. Two high school seniors try to return three babies to the video game they came from after they mysteriously arrive on Earth. •
Boss Level (2021) – Directed by
Joe Carnahan. A retired soldier is trapped in a never-ending
time loop that repeatedly results in his death. It adapts video game tropes in film format. •
Free Guy (2021) – Directed by
Shawn Levy. Guy, a
non-player character, becomes aware of his world being a video game called Free City. •
8-Bit Christmas (2021) – Directed by
Michael Dowse. A father recounts his quest to get a
Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s. •
Choose or Die (2022) – Directed by Toby Meakins. As people play the text-based video game CURS>R, the game begins to interact with the real world. •
1Up (2022) – Directed by
Kyle Newman. An all-girl team competes in a gaming competition. •
Fantasy Football (2022) – Directed by Anton Cropper. A girl plays
Madden NFL 23 to control her Dad in actual
NFL playoffs. •
Tetris (2023) – Directed by
Jon S. Baird. Biopic movie about the battle led by
Henk Rogers and
Nintendo for the
Tetris rights for its version of
Famicom / NES and the upcoming
Game Boy during the tensions of the
Cold War between the United States and the
Soviet Union in the late 1980s. •
Gran Turismo (2023) – Directed by
Neill Blomkamp. Biopic movie about a
Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won a series of
Nissan-sponsored video game competitions to become an actual professional race car driver. •
Tron: Ares (2025) – Directed by
Joachim Rønning.
Standalone sequel to
Tron: Legacy. ==See also==