Over the past five years, it seems that video game movies have become a regular part of pop culture, as there always seems to be one video game movie a year that breaks the box office. However, for the many who don’t remember older video game movies, they were, for several decades, considered terrible cash grabs that would rarely have anything to do with the games themselves. So what happened in the past five years to give video game movies this massive resurgence, and how is it going to continue in the future?

Let’s start with a quick flashback to the 90s and 2000s to see what video game movies were like. Movies like 1993’s Super Mario Bros and 1994’s Street Fighter are two perfect examples of this. Outside of being terribly acted and edited, both of these movies had little accuracy to the games, leaving fans of the games disappointed and casual viewers just confused. In the Mario movie for example, Mario and Lugigi use guns, which speaks for itself.

Street Fighter (1994)

Super Mario Bros (1993): Yes, this is real.

While similar movies of this era weren’t nearly as outlandish, if something like Mario and Luigi using guns was in a movie today, the internet would riot. In fact, the internet is the main reason that many of these old video game movies have the horrible reputation they deserve. Due to the numerous movie reviewing websites, it became common consensus that all video game movies were bad and not a single good video game movie had ever been made, which to be fair was true at the time. However, due to these movies’ poor receptions, as well as their often poor financial performances, it discouraged many from making video game movies altogether. 

In 2020, the reputation of video game movies would finally change with the release of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. 

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

At first, this movie seems the same as the older video game movies, not taking too much inspiration from the games, even being set in the real world, for some reason. But unlike the video game movies before it, the Sonic movie did two things right. Number one: it took enough inspiration from the games to show the movie was made with care, while also allowing fans to pick up on many references left in the movie. More importantly though is number two: the movie didn’t suck. The editing and CGI actually looked good, and the story was simple and fun enough for most people to follow it. The movie wasn’t outstanding, but it was still showered with praise for being able to make a video game movie that was at least good. 

Video games themselves have only gotten more popular in the 2010s and 2020s, and once audiences were more open to video games movies, studios started to seriously push them. The next major release was the Uncharted movie, which similar to Sonic, saw mostly positive reviews. Just two months later, the sequel to the Sonic movie, 

Uncharted (2022)

Sonic 2, was released, which saw far more references to the games than the first and was considered by many to be superior to the original.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)

 Then, in 2023, a new Super Mario Bros movie was released, The Super Mario Bros Movie. This was the first video game movie that really showed how popular they had become, making 1.3 billion dollars. Outside of commercial success though, the movie was praised for having a simple yet fun plot, countless references to the games, and most importantly, not giving any of the characters guns. 

The Super Mario Bros Movie (2023)

There have been several more movies released since like the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, a third sequel to the Sonic movie, and the recently released, A Minecraft Movie, all of which were or most likely will be extremely successful. By now, you can probably tell that everything that made these movies successful are the same things that made the first Sonic movie successful: plenty of references to the games, and having actual effort put into them. 

Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024)

A Minecraft Movie (2025)

All of this success raises a question: is the trend of video game movies breaking the box office going to continue, or will it die out? Well actually, I just put that sentence there for a good transition, because it’s pretty obvious that video game movies will continue to be released and will continue to be successful. There’s already plans for a second Mario movie, a second Five Nights at Freddy’s movie, a fourth Sonic movie, as well as some more projects like a Legend of Zelda movie. While the future is looking bright for video game movies, the past is still just as dark, and it’s always interesting to look at how far these movies have come in such a short amount of time.