Best Movies and TV About Games

 #Entertainment

Big blockbuster movies and TV shows are often accompanied by large licensing deals that result in huge amounts of merchandise produced for them.

Star Wars was the film that helped to start this trend and it remains one of the best examples today.

Not only do Star Wars fans have the opportunity to buy figurines of their favorite characters, but they can also purchase video games that can then be played on their consoles, computers, and smartphones.

There are, in fact, about as many games as there are Star Wars movies and television shows, with recent additions to the franchise including LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes.

However, we also see this happen in reverse, with movies made about games. So far, the success of these films has been patchy, with some being big flops. One of these was Super Mario Bros. (1993), a live-action comedy film that was a very distant departure from what gamers were used to.

However, some movies and TV shows made about games turn out to be great, becoming cult classics and commercial successes. Here are some of those.

Rounders (1998)

Starring a young Matt Damon and Edward Norton, Rounders (1998) is a film about poker. Damon plays Mike, a talented card player who aspires to become a professional and win the World Series of Poker.

However, things don’t go his way and he loses his entire bankroll to a mobster. He vows not to play poker again and, instead, focuses on getting his law degree.

Things go well for a while until Mike’s friend, Worm (Norton), gets released from prison and convinces Mike to get back into the game.

Things spiral as Worm gets Mike into more and more trouble through backroom games and they have to find a way to get out.

Although it wasn’t a huge success upon its release, Rounders has developed a cult following a few years later and is widely believed to be a contributor to the poker boom in the 2000s.

During this time, the number of people looking to get into poker exploded, with many turning to online poker sites to learn the ropes.

Today, the iGaming market has matured quite a bit, but there are still many people turning to sites like PokerStars that produce guides on how to play poker after watching Rounders. When they do, they’ll find that the offering available today is much more advanced than it was 20 years ago, with platforms providing mobile versions, as well as multi-table features, and a long list of variants.

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

A miniseries based on a 1983 book by Walter Tevis, The Queen’s Gambit follows the story of a naturally gifted chess player who struggles with life away from the board and the prejudice that comes from being a woman in a male-dominated sport.

After its release to the Netflix streaming platform in late October 2020, the show became the platform’s most-watched scripted miniseries. It was near-universally enjoyed too, topping Netflix’s charts in 63 countries.

Like Rounders, The Queen’s Gambit helped get people interested in the game. Even a year after it was released, chess sets were still in such high demand that retailers couldn’t restock them fast enough.

The miniseries also won a string of awards, including a Grammy for Best Score Soundtrack.

Sonic The Hedgehog (2020)

Nintendo’s Mario might have enjoyed better success in video games than Sega’s Sonic, but the blue hedgehog has fared better on the big screen.

Unlike the 1993 Super Mario Bros. flop, Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) was a major commercial success. From a production budget of $90 million, it made almost $320 million at the box office alone.

The movie received a lot of criticism when the first trailer was released in 2019, with fans condemning the way Sonic had been designed and animated.

This meant that Paramount had to spend three months recreating the character after fans complained about his “human-looking teeth” and small eyes, as well as the fact that he didn’t actually look like a hedgehog.

That was all fixed though, and the film was a huge success, making it one of the best gaming movies of all time.