10 Movies Where The Main Character Is A Gamer

Summary

• All of these films offer a unique blend of gaming elements, making them a treat for those who love both gaming and movies.
• These films also demonstrate how the world of gaming can provide engaging and imaginative storytelling.
• Being a gamer can lead to great and sometimes unexpected adventures, from dystopian quests to saving the world from alien invaders.

While you may be one of the many people who love to pass the time with your favorite video games, it’s just as likely that you enjoy passing the time by watching a great movie. Luckily, there aren’t just plenty of movies based on video games, but also plenty of movies where the main characters are gamers.

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Respectable (and creepy) adaptations.

While movies like that have been met with mixed results, there is always something cool about seeing your chosen hobby on the big screen. It just goes to show that sometimes, being a gamer means you can be destined for great things, or at the very least, you can help someone else do great things.

These movies were chosen, not only because they feature a main character who is a gamer, but because they explore various aspects of gaming, from virtual worlds and easter eggs to the blurring of game and reality.

10 Ready Player One

Ultimate Gaming Adventure

This Steven Spielburg-directed film from 2018, based on the famous book of the same name, is a lot of fun for fans of gaming and fans of movies in general. Starring Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke among the rest of the all-star cast, this dystopian world is one that you might even wish you could experience.

With the simple premise being for a gamer to find the ultimate easter egg in an incredible video game world, Ready Player One is an experience that everyone can enjoy. It’s filled with easter eggs from gaming and film all throughout, making each and every frame a joy to explore.

9 Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

Young Spies In A Virtual World

This kid's movie from 2003 is still considered to be a classic by many thanks to how imaginative the whole series was. Sending young kids on massive spy adventures, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over side-stepped the usual spy plots and sends the main hero Juni Cortex into a virtual world.

Having to enter the game world in order to save his sister, Juni struggles to survive as he tries to save his sister and the whole world from a villain played by Sylvester Stallone. With some great performances all around, fans will love each second, especially that quick cameo from Elijah Wood as The guy.

8 Free Guy

NPCs Gone Rogue

This fun comedy asks you to consider what NPCs do when no one else is around, and what might happen if one decided to go rogue. That is the exact plot of Free Guy, with Ryan Reynold’s Guy helping Jodie Comer and Joe Keery to combat the evil game designer played by Taika Watiti.

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This is another movie that adds in a lot of loving easter eggs for gamers to enjoy, regardless of which genre of gaming you enjoy. The main characters may all be game designers, but designing requires gaming, and that’s good enough.

7 The Wizard

'80s Nintendo Celebration

Those of you who lived through the eighties or have family members who force you to watch old movies may have experienced The Wizard, a 1989 film starring Fred Savage. The whole thing is basically one giant commercial for Nintendo, and that is not a bad thing at all.

The film drips with cheese, and it’s a hilarious movie to watch now especially how serious the gaming is taken. Everything about the movie is rad, and that’s why it’s slowly being recognized as an underrated gem of the eighties.

6 Ender's Game

Dark Twist On Gaming

While it is kind of dark to call Ender's Game a movie about a gamer, when you really think about it, that’s exactly what it is. Ender's Game may end up being a lot darker than it initially seems, especially in the novel, but Ender is one of the Galaxy’s best gamers for better or worse.

Ender is a gifted kid who ends up training in these simulated games in which he takes on a role that no one his age should ever have. It’s a great movie that makes you think about just how dark gaming could be if the medium was changed ever so slightly.

5 Gamer

Controlling Prisoners

This bizarre 2009 film is about a world in which ordinary people control death-row prisoners as they fight to the death in a battle-royale-style game called Slayers. While that concept may seem a bit out there, it has some relatively big names in the cast being led by Gerard Butler, but also featuring the likes of Michael C. Hall, Logan Lerman, and even Terry Crews.

The movie seems to have been met with a bit of a mixed reaction, even tanking at the box office, but the concept is worth checking out if you’re a fan of gaming. It’s an over-the-top sci-fi action movie, and sometimes that’s all anyone needs.

4 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

Classic Board Game Turned Video Game

Being the modern reboot of the Jumanji series, Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle takes the classic board game adventure and changes it into a video game adventure. This makes the lead cast a group of gamers who just so happen to have to live through the game they’re playing.

Finding themselves trapped in a game, four kids now in the bodies of a diverse group of characters played by Dwayne Johnson, Chris Rock, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black have to complete the game they’re trapped in if they want to return to the real world.

3 Jumanji: The Next Level

Escaping The Game Gets Complex

Serving as the 2019 follow-up to the 2017 hit, Jumanji: The Next Level sees the same cast winding up as the same heroic video game characters, though this time the body swaps are slightly different.

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The group once again has to complete their game in order to escape, but things get a lot more complex in a hurry. It’s as fantastic, hilarious, and as action-packed as the last movie, making both Jumanji films a great watch if you love video games.

2 Cloak And Dagger

Blurring Game And Reality

1984’s Cloak & Dagger is an interesting movie because while the main character is undoubtedly a gamer, much of the movie plays out simply because the kid’s favorite game is blurred into the real world.

Young Davey Osbourne imagines the main character of his favorite game walking around with him as an imaginary friend, and it eventually falls on Davey to get a game cartridge packed with top-secret information to the proper authorities. It’s a strange adventure, but a classic kids' movie from the eighties that gamers today might enjoy.

1 Pixels

Aliens Mistake Games For War

If you’re someone who likes Adam Sandler comedies and all the usual things that come with his movies, you’re sure to enjoy 2015’s Pixels. It’s a fun little comedy where aliens think video games are Earth’s messaging for war, and come for combat as a result.

As one might expect, Adam Sandler’s character Brenner is the gamer who has to step up in order to try to save the world. It’s another over-the-top plot, but this one is a lot of fun as long as you are someone who enjoys Adam Sandler’s brand of humor.

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