a starter pack of twenty video game cinema selections • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

Over the past several years, with film and television studios alike seeking to mine the realm of video game storytelling, an abundance of game adaptations have been announced, released and sometimes abandoned. Just in 2026 alone, we’ve had a Super Mario movie with Galaxy, yet another attempt at a Silent Hill adaptation with Return to Silent Hill and the indie hit Iron Lung (itself directed by game streamer Markiplier), among others, with so many readaptations (another Resident Evil, another Mortal Kombat, another Street Fighter) on the way.

They aren’t all “good”, and certainly not all actually curated for the individuals who play those games, but they have resulted in such an insane range of films that it’s hard not to want to discover more and more of them. Even beyond direct adaptations, plenty of filmmakers have chosen instead to be inspired by those games, their worlds, and the very individuals who play them in order to create their own unique visions. Some of these films have been critically and commercially reviled, only to find their audience later in life, and others are still argued about and likely will continue to be (but what else can we expect from gamers).

We’re playing fast and loose with what it means to get categorized on this list, but one limitation I forced onto myself was that if it was not based on or distinctly tied to a game, the fictional game itself had to be a core part of the narrative or the world. There are also no television shows or miniseries, which means that something like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, far and away one of the best game adaptations, will not show up here.