10 Popular Video Game Movies, Ranked by Faithfulness

This article contains spoilers for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Read at your own risk.

Movies that are adaptions of video games have gotten a very bad reputation over the years. While it’s certainly gotten a lot better as studios have slowly, but surely, become more open to being stronger in their faithfulness to the game they’re adapting. Which is a big part of the bad reception they’ve collectively gotten over the years. Fans hate to go into a production that is nothing like what it’s trying to recreate. Or is just overall bad, like Borderlands.

There will most likely never be a video game film adaption that’s a perfect, one-to-one to the story it’s trying to tell. But, what would be the fun in that, anyway? So, being faithful doesn’t have to just mean being close to the story, but it can also mean keeping the tone and vibe of the source material, too. While there aren’t many, there are a good handful of video game movies that pay great respect to the projects they’re trying to bring to film.

10

‘Assassin’s Creed’ (2016)

Directed by Justin Kurzel

Unfortunately for the Assassin’s Creed film, it’s relatively close to the source material, but simply a poorly made movie. Even though the film is overall considered pretty bad, it is pretty accurate to the source material and the world that the team over at Ubisoft has built over the years. Which makes the failure of this film even harder to swallow.

Thankfully, though, it proved that it is possible to make an Assassin’s Creed live-action adaption that can stick close to the games, which, hopefully, spells good things for the television adaption coming to Netflix. So, while it may not be a particularly good movie, fans rest easily with the fact that director Justin Kurzel actually attempted to make it a faithful iteration.

9

‘Silent Hill’ (2006)

Directed by Christophe Gans

Like a chunk of other video game movies, Silent Hill finds itself not being received well by critics but better by general audiences. What would have made it a challenge to bring this franchise to life is the fact that the games have a very distinct feeling and vibe that essentially define them from the other horror games out there.

The 2006 movie brings this tone to life in an excellent manner both in the ambiance of its sound design and score, but (especially) visually. Silent Hill‘s story isn’t perfect, but, at the end of the day, didn’t need to be. Horror movies typically don’t have masterful plots, regardless, but it can be assured that fans most likely appreciate a mid-tier film that captures the feeling rather than a better one that doesn’t understand the mood of the source material.

8

‘Uncharted’ (2022)

Directed by Rubed Fleischer

Yes, there was a bit of controversy with the casting of Tom Holland as Nathan Drake, due to the fact that he doesn’t necessarily fit the game’s version of the character. However, this did not keep the film from being pretty faithful in a lot of other ways. Uncharted captures the feeling, story and visuals of the games quite well, actually.

It’s most faithful in the action sequences. It carries the same tone and fast-paced nature that the games do, but also takes entire set-pieces from the source material and adapts them to the movie. This not only allows the film to have incredibly unique action in the general audience’s eyes, but it pleased fans everywhere, as well. Seeing the action scenes they loved from the games in live-action was a massive treat, Tom Holland or not.

7

‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ (2022)

Directed by Jeff Fowler

Interestingly enough, the first Sonic the Hedgehog film was received very well, but was barely faithful to the world and stories of the games. So, fans knew that if director Jeff Fowler could impress them with a movie that isn’t very accurate, he would blow them away if he brought more of the lore from the games into his universe. When he did in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, that exact thing happened.

Many claim the lack of faithfulness in the first film to be studio mandates, because the inclusion of a lot more game material in the second film, in which Fowler most likely got more creative freedom, made it pretty obvious. Not only did it bring in two absolutely essential characters from the Sonic mythos, but it incorporated the Master Emerald, Chaos Emeralds and entire game set-pieces in it, as well. It also heavily toned down the inclusion of the human characters, which was one big downside of the first film.

6

‘Tomb Raider’ (2018)

Directed by Roar Uthaug

Much like Uncharted, while it isn’t a perfect adaption (and certainly isn’t a perfect movie), it adapts certain moments from the games excellently. It also has to be stated that Alicia Vikander does a phenomenal job bringing the character of Laura Croft to life. It was definitely torn apart by both critics and audiences, but it can’t be denied that it’s not a complete stranger to fans.

Bringing in full sequences from the games to the big screen is a great sight to behold. This allows it to be an incredibly thrilling ride that, while not great in the story department, it’s a very entertaining movie. The vibe of the games is captured in a serviceable manner, too, making this a glimmer of hope for Tomb Raider fans that they could one day get a faithful adaption that’s good in every way.

5

‘Warcraft’ (2016)

Directed by Duncan Jones

The World of Warcraft franchise is one of the largest video game series ever. So, one would assume that there was a plethora of pressure and stakes that came with bringing it to the big screen. When 2016 came around and Warcraft released, critics ripped it apart, but fans found a lot of solace and genuine enjoyment in the way the world was brought to life.

Director Duncan Jones paid a ton of respect to the game when adapting it to live-action. Whenever a video game adaption gets announced, even with the more enjoyable ones in the modern day, fans get very nervous. Thankfully, Jones seemed to know what fans wanted, which may not have pleased critics, but the people who really mattered seemed to enjoy it.

4

‘Mortal Kombat’ (2021)

Directed by Simon McQuoid

Everyone knows the 1995 Mortal Kombat film, as it’s become a bit of a “so bad it’s good” movie that has gained quite a cult following. However, in 2021, the studios decided it was time to bring the game back to the big screen. With the aid of modern day visual effects and camera technology, Mortal Kombat found itself being a great adaption of the original game stories.

It captured a wide array of great things from the games, like the fighting styles (full finishers included), world and character designs, powers and overall tone. Fans were incredibly pleased with this new adaption of the franchise because, while not perfect, it paid a lot of respect to the source material and that had to be respected.

3

‘Sonic the Hedgehog 3’ (2024)

Directed by Jeff Fowler

Being only released under a week ago, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 already has the entire world in a chokehold. It gave fans pretty much everything they asked for with the third film, serving as a wonderful adaption of the Sonic Adventure 2 storyline and bringing a plethora of new lore into the film universe.

Not to mention, it also included a ton of references to the original game, like the fan favorite song, “Live and Learn” by Crush 40 playing over the final battle. The post-credits scene also made the leap of introducing the likes of Metal Sonic and Amy Rose the Hedgehog as a teaser for the recently announced Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Audiences are so in love with the film that there are videos leaking from theaters across the world of viewers having genuinely Avengers: Endgame-level reactions to the film.

2

‘Pokémon Detective Pikachu’ (2019)

Directed by Rob Letterman

Being a franchise that is so deeply catered to video games and animation, many were very unsure about bringing the world of Pokémon to live-action. Whether it be the fear that the character designs wouldn’t be translated well, that the story would not live up to the video game projects or simply that the writing would be sub-par, fans were not sure what to think.

From the very first trailer, though, Pokémon Detective Pikachu was clearly, at the very least, going to be visually faithful to the franchise. This alone made fans of the series very happy and excited to see what Rob Letterman and the rest of the crew would do with the property. When the film released in 2019, people were very happy to see that the faithfulness didn’t end with the visuals, but kept the story (especially that of Mewtwo (Rina Hoshino & Kotaro Watanabe)) very near and dear to what the games had done.

1

‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’ (2023)

Directed by Aaron Horvath

There may not ever be a video game movie adaption that will be 100% faithful, but if there were a project to be a borderline perfect adaption, it would be The Super Mario Bros. Movie. The respect it pays to the source material and the sheer incredibly accurate depiction of the entire Mushroom Kingdom made this one of the best animated films of 2023.

While many were super unconfident about the casting of Chris Pratt as Mario, it ended up turning out great. Pratt delivered a good performance alongside the rest of the phenomenal cast. This gave a lot of hope for viewers everywhere that video game movies can be close to one-to-one in faithfulness and be good.

NEXT: The 10 Best Sonic the Hedgehog Transformations, Ranked