Not all of the following movies are explicitly set in video games, but the setting, plot, and camera work borrow so much from the video game medium that the viewer has to remind themselves not to reach for the nearest controller. There are classic entries as well as recent releases, so the genre isn’t new, nor is it going away anytime soon.
7 TRON (1984)
Not all of TRON takes place in a video game, but the image of the speeder bikes and disc games has become an iconic image that represents the entire franchise. The story opens in the real world, and most of the story takes place within a computer, with one part of that setting including the gaming section.
Modern viewers who watch the classic TRON will understand it better than people who saw it in theaters back in the early 1980s. The movie was a commercial failure because audiences of the time didn’t understand concepts like NPCs, programming languages, or even internal memory. These days, everything depicted in this movie makes more sense.
6 Ready Player One (2018)
A modern system of virtual reality that bases its environment on both contemporary technology and pop-culture nostalgia makes Ready Player One a unique type of movie that takes place within a video game. There’s also the question hanging in the air about the future of gaming, and from the looks of this movie, it’s one of virtual reality.
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The story itself has a dystopian setting, as the virtual reality world known as the OASIS is where most of the action takes place. This isn’t just a place for gaming, however, but where the poor and huddled masses escape from the dull and depressing real world by leading simulated lives that involve mundane tasks like attending school or grocery shopping.
5 Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle
The sequel to Jumanji, a movie that takes place in a board game, Jumani: Welcome To The Jungle updates the plot by making the setting a console game instead. The story is written like that of the original board game, which has now become a video game to entice curious children more easily.
Four unwitting teenagers are sucked into the game, and in a twist from the previous installment, they have to play as their RPG avatars in an action-based scenario instead of using a simple dice roll. Their only means of escape is, of course, to beat the game. The concept worked well enough that it spawned a sequel, Jumanji: The Next Level, and another film is planned in the series that has yet to be titled.
4 Serenity (2019)
Spoiler alert, as the twist in Serenity is that the main characters of this movie are non-player characters (NPCs) in a video game. This detail isn’t revealed until much later in the story, so the viewer spends the first two-thirds of this movie thinking they’re watching a basic action-thriller.
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The main character is Baker Dill, a fishing boat captain with a troubled past that he’s trying to forget by chasing a giant yellow tuna nicknamed “Justice.” One day, his ex-wife shows up and asks him to help her murder her abusive new husband, appealing to him on behalf of their son Patrick. Eventually, Baker comes to understand that he is a computerized version of John Mason, a US Marine captain who died in Iraq more than ten years ago and Patrick’s father. Art ends up imitating life, but we won’t give away any more than that.
3 eXistenZ (1999)
People who like both body horror and video games will enjoy the twists and turns in David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ. This is one of the movies that was shunned in its time, but since its release, has spawned a cult following and received critical acclaim.
The film takes place in an unspecified near-future time when bio-implants have replaced electronic headsets, and protagonist Allegra Geller has designed a new VR game. The movie opens with her giving a demonstration of her work, or at least that’s what it seems. There are different levels of reality to be found within the game, so many that a player might not be able to find their way out.
2 Hardcore Henry (2015)
Filming a movie using these kinds of first-person POV camera angles would have never been considered before video games made them possible. It’s not exactly what is referred to as a “big-budget film,” and it was considered a box office failure. There are some famous names in the cast though, and the special effects, including the camera work, are interesting and creative.
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The plot sounds like a video game, with Henry waking up on a plane to find his limbs replaced with bionic ones and his voice gone, because what FPS shooter ever says anything? That’s not all that Hardcore Henry has in common with a modern video game, however, and therein lies the real reason it didn’t get more views. An FPS with little to offer in the way of story, plot, or characters is still a fun video game — but a movie without all that stuff gets boring.
1 Crank: High Voltage (2009)
In the same vein as other movies that use video game references for everything from setting to characterization, there’s also Crank: High Voltage. The post-credit scene of the first movie looks like an old video game, which sets up the premise of the second one.
The sequel opens up with a newscast that resembles an old CD ROM and includes the main character falling from a helicopter and surviving, only to have someone remove his heart to sell it to someone else. In this case, the NPCs and companion characters seem more animated than others, and someone with a sick sense of humor wrote the dialogue. The quest, of course, is to get the heart back and make sure there’s enough electricity to keep an artificial heart going in the meantime.
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