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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFrom arcade fighters to survival horror, video games inspired a surprisingly varied run of films from the 1990s through the mid-2000s. “Forgotten” here is an editorial hook, not a claim about what every viewer remembers. This list focuses on ten adaptations whose games may be more familiar today than their movie versions.
Release years below follow the film reference list, which includes films released in different territories and formats; they should not all be read as U.S. theatrical dates. The selection includes both live-action and animated films, and lists one movie per game franchise.
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Ten video game movies worth remembering
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Super Mario Bros. (1993)
The Nintendo platforming icon made an early leap to live action in a film that reimagined Mario and Luigi’s familiar world rather than simply reproducing the games. Its place on this list reflects how striking that adaptation choice was—not a claim that the film is a definitive version of the games.
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Double Dragon (1994)
The film took the beat-’em-up franchise’s martial-arts premise into live action. It is a reminder that game adaptations of the period reached beyond the biggest global names to arcade titles built around co-op action and street-fighting settings.
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Street Fighter (1994)
Capcom’s fighting-game series became a live-action ensemble film, bringing recognizable characters and tournament combat to the screen. The franchise’s reach is also evident in Capcom’s historical box-office table: its 2012 annual report listed Street Fighter at $99,423,521 worldwide as of June 30, 2012, using Capcom figures. That is a dated company-reported figure, not a current gross or a measure of the film’s quality.
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Mortal Kombat (1995)
The film adapted the arcade series’ roster of fighters and supernatural tournament premise. Alongside Street Fighter, it shows how readily fighting games supplied movie-ready ingredients: distinct characters, rivalries, and a reason to bring them together.
Rank #2
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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Lara Croft’s first major film adaptation carried the action-adventure game’s globe-trotting explorer into live action. Its title makes the connection explicit, while the character-led approach set it apart from adaptations centered on a tournament or a single game mechanic.
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Resident Evil (2002)
The first film in the Resident Evil series drew on the games’ survival-horror world but followed its own movie story. Capcom’s 2012 report placed the film at $102,441,078 worldwide as of June 30, 2012; the report’s figures are company-reported historical totals and should not be confused with current box-office tracking.
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Doom (2005)
The film brought the first-person shooter franchise to live action, shifting a game strongly associated with combat and hostile environments into a feature-length science-fiction story. It represents a different adaptation challenge from games whose central appeal is a cast of named characters.
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Silent Hill (2006)
Rather than adapting a fighting roster or an action-adventure hero, Silent Hill translated the games’ horror setting to film. Capcom’s 2012 report listed $97,607,453 in worldwide box-office revenue as of June 30, 2012. Although the game franchise is not a Capcom property, the company included the film in its table of Japanese game content adopted into movies; the figure is explicitly labeled as Capcom’s.
Rank #4
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Dead or Alive (2006)
The film adaptation brought the fighting-game franchise’s combat-centered premise to live action. Its arrival in the same broad era as Doom and Silent Hill illustrates how adaptations drew on very different kinds of games, even when the screen versions shared a genre label like action.
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Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)
This animated adaptation is a separate film from the 1994 live-action Street Fighter, and it earns its own place because it is a distinct screen version rather than a second entry for the same movie. Including animation matters: video game adaptations were not limited to live-action features, and animated films could draw more directly on a game’s characters and visual style.
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What the box-office figures do—and do not—show
Capcom’s Annual Report 2012 includes a table titled “Revenue Ranking of Japanese Game Content that Has Been Adopted into Movies.” It labels the amounts as worldwide box-office revenue “As of June 30, 2012. (Capcom figures).” In addition to the three films cited above, the report lists Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D at $296,221,663, Resident Evil: Extinction at $147,717,833, Resident Evil: Apocalypse at $129,394,835, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within at $85,131,830, Super Mario Bros. at $20,915,465, House of the Dead at $13,818,181, and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li at $12,764,201. These are the report’s historical company figures, not current totals, and the list covers a broader set of films than the ten selected here.
The report is useful as a dated snapshot of how one game publisher presented movie revenue. It is not a consistent, current comparison of every adaptation: it is limited to the titles in Capcom’s table, identifies the figures as Capcom’s, and gives a specific cutoff date. Revenue also cannot tell you whether a film is enjoyable, faithful to its source, or remembered by audiences.
Why these adaptations are easy to overlook
The games themselves have enduringly recognizable names, but that does not guarantee equal visibility for every film attached to them. The ten examples span live-action and animation, arcade fighting, platforming, adventure, shooters, and horror. Their adaptations also vary in how closely they use a game’s characters and setting. Those differences make them more useful as a snapshot of video-game movie history than as a ranking of quality or popularity.
For release-year context, the film reference list and GameRevolution’s “Movies Born Of Games”, published July 21, 2009, provide broader catalogs of game-based films. The catalogs cover different film types and release contexts, so a year alone does not establish a U.S. theatrical opening date.
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