32 Movies With Great Video Game Scenes

Movies have been prominently featuring video games going all the way back to the dawn of the gaming industry in the 1970s. Movies like Tron and The Last Starfighter made them central to the plot, while others like Swingers and The Avengers found ways to create some great moments around. Our list of movies with great video game moments has both.

Tron

Tron has become one of the most enduring franchises of the last half century, despite only having limited released. It was one of the first movies to truly incorporate video games and gaming directing into the plot. Not only does the protagonist (Jeff Bridges) own an arcade and play games himself, his avatar plays inside the Master Control

The Princess Bride

You might not think of this fairy tale as a video game movie, but you have to remember that first scene. As the grandson, played by Fred Savage, recovers in bed, home sick from school, he's playing a baseball video. At least until his grandfather shows up with a magical book called The Princess Bride. .

John Wick

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) isn't the kind of guy who would spend a lot of time playing video games, but those rich idiots who he is after are certainly the types that would pay more attention to a first-person shooter game than the shooter who is out to get them and get them Wick does.

Fast Times At Ridgemont High

Everything cool in Fast Times At Ridgemont High happens at the mall, including the arcade. There isn't a movie that is more quintessential to the '80s high school life than the Amy Heckerling-directed classic. That includes a few scenes in the mall's arcade, including the last shot in the movie declaring the end of the movie.

The Last Starfighter

For a lot of kids in the 1980s, The Last Starfighter represented a dream that maybe there is more to being great at video games than just getting to put your initials on the home screen. Maybe, just maybe, you might get chosen to be an intergalactic pilot. It's why the movie is so fondly remembered by any kid who grew up playing Galaga.

Boyz N The Hood

Even movies about the untold violence on the streets in South Central LA have found a way to work video games in, as they are truly ubiquitous. Take, for example, the more ominous tone of kids playing Duck Hunt on Nintendo with a very real-looking video game gun. It's hard to watch after knowing how things end and viewers are hyper-aware of that gun, toy or not.

Ready Player One

There is no doubt that Ready Player One has to be on this list. Of course, the whole world it creates is basically a giant game. Plus, games from the past, from the early days of home consoles and arcades play a big part in the quest everyone on earth is undertaking in the movie and serve to drive the plot at numerous times.

WarGames

Global Thermal Nuclear War is, in theory, a game in WarGames. Not only does the game serve as a central plot point, but the world is saved by playing any other video game based on tic-tac-toe. Oh, and there is a scene early in the movie where David (Matthew Broderick) is playing Space Invaders and it doesn't get more classic than that.

The Avengers

"That man is playing Galaga," has to be one of Tony Stark's best lines in the entire MCU. It comes in The Avengers as the team is assembling and getting ready to save the world, yet some people on the crew of the invisible flying base clearly have enough time on their hands for a quick game of a classic game.

Swingers

For anyone who played endless amounts of NHL hockey on Sega in the '90s, there is no more realistic or funnier scene than the one in Swingers when Sue (Patrick Van Horn) and Trent (Vince Vaughn) come to blows over a game before they go out for the night. It's pretty much exactly how that game was played for years.

The Karate Kid

Video games don't play a huge role in The Karate Kid, but they are important. Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Ali (Elizabeth Shue) really start flirting and she blows him while playing one in an arcade when their relationship starts to blossom.

Back to the Future Part II

One of the most memorable scenes in Back to the Future Part II comes when Marty (Micheal J. Fox) looks behind him while in the future to see an arcade game called Wild Gunman. When he tries to impress a couple of kids by being a "crack shot," the kids basically laugh the game off as a game for babies, because you have to use your hands. Honestly, it's not that far off from how things would turn out.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

it's funny, even in the early '90s, arcades, which were already almost obsoete, were still used to represent what "bad kids" did, like a teenage John Connor (Edward Furlough) in Terminator 2: Judgement Day. John and his buddy are hanging out at the arcade, getting into trouble, when the Terminator locates them for the first time.

Maximum Overdrive

You can't make a movie about the machine's coming "alive" without having a harrowing scene involving some arcade games. As bad as Maximum Overdrive is, it is filled with memorable scenes like the one when the games attack a character played by a young Giancarlo Esposito.

Jaws

Video games have been popping up in movies since way back in 1976 when kids are seen playing a game called "Killer Shark" at beach arcade on Amity Island.

Mallrats

Another classic home console moment from a '90s movie comes in the Kevin Smith-directed Mallrats. Brody is a shiftless layabout and his girlfriend, played by the late Shannen Doherty, is sick of it. Her feelings are completely justified when the first thing he does is pick up with his paused game from the night before. Granted, he was excited about his big lead in the hockey game, which many will understand.

Dawn Of The Dead

In the early days of arcades, pinball was a big part of the appeal. It's a pinball machine in an arcade that makes the biggest impression in one of the best horror movies of all time, Dawn Of The Dead from 1978.

Superbad

Video game scenes in movies often reflect a pretty accurate moments in real life. Like the scene in Superbad when Seth (Jonah Hill) is stressing about a party and Evan (Michael Sera) couldn't care less as he is distracted by his game. That sums up a lot of people's nights (and friendships) in high school.

Airplane!

No movie packs in more jokes per minute than Airplane! One of those jokes, includes two air traffic controllers playing a basketball video game when they should be landing planes. It's a funny joke, but a terrifying thought, right?

The Wrestler

The Wrestler is an amazing movie about a washed up pro wrestler (Mickey Rourke) who finds some version of a family, at least briefly and bonds with Pam (Marisa Tomei) and her son. In a heartwarming moment, he plays a wrestling video game against Pam's son.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

To be fair, the video game moment in Ferris Bueller's Day Off is fleeting but memorable. Principle Rooney (Jeffery Jones), on his quest to find Ferris (Matthew Broderick) encounters a person who he thinks is Ferris playing an arcade game. Of course, it's not Ferris, and in return for his mistake, Rooney gets a straw full of soda to the face.

Shaun Of The Dead

There is nothing quite like roommates playing video games together to make someone nostalgic for...well... having a roommate. For millions of people, it's a rite of passage to blow off work or school and spend the day going toe-to-toe in a video game battle.

Scott Pilgrim V. The World

Games like Dance Dance Revolution were all the rage in 2010, when Scott Pilgrim V. The World was released worldwide. Of course, a game like Dance Dance Revolution would be included in the movie, in one of the scenes before everything goes sideways for the protagonist. It's a sweet scene that really endears the audience to Scott (Michael Cera).

Zombieland

It turns out that Michael Cera plays a lot of characters who love video games. They aren't the main focus of any of his movies, but still, in movies like Zombieland, he's often seen playing them. In Zombieland, it's World of Warcraft.

Grosse Pointe Blank

"First-person shooter" takes on a new meaning in Grosse Pointe Blank when the clerk at the convenience store that was once Martin Blank's house is oblivious to the actual shooting going on behind him as he listens to metal and shoots enemies in the game. Finally, he has to be pulled from the store by Martin (John Cusack) moments before it explodes. Anyone who has played games knows how they can be that engrossing.

The Wizard

The Wizard, starring Fred Savage is... not a great movie, and it reeks of corporatism (it was basically a big commercial for Nintendo), but we couldn't make this list without it. It was a time when Nintendo had completely redefined the video game market with their hit console, the NES. It makes total sense that the hype would lead to a movie and completely predictable that it would be a bad movie.

Lost In Translation

Japanese arcades are completely awesome. It's a culture that did last in America but has been going strong in Japan since the beginning. As such, it's a wonder addition to Sofia Coppola's Lost In Translation as part of what makes the cultures so different and fascinating to Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson).

Never Say Never Again

It's true, even James Bond was part of the 1980s video game fad. Well, sort of. Bond (Sean Connery) plays a wild video game with real-life consequences in Never Say Never Again, which is why we say "sort of," because the movie, though not the worst Bond movie, is definitely not Bond canon and not one of the best Connery-Era Bond films.

Superman III

When ranking the Superman movies, Superman III is usually at or near the bottom of the list. It's a bad movie, but it does have a hilarious Superman video game that we all wished we could play when we were kids. It's really the only good part of a movie that even Richard Pryor couldn't make funny or fun.

The Thing

Some of Kurt Russell's best lines in his movies come from The Thing, and he also has a moment or two as he tries to save himself from destructive boredom by playing an early version of computer chess. Chess has long been a staple game going back to the dawn of the first home computers, so it worked well in the time period.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Like some other scenes on this list, the scene between Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd playing Mortal Kombat Deception is pretty much exactly how video game arguments went at the time, completely with the slurs we would never use today (and shouldn't have been using back in the day, but were).

Joysticks

We're really only including this silly, raunchy B-movie because it was kind of the first movie to truly be about the first video game fad of the late 1970s, though it came out just as the fad was imploding with the Video Game Crash of 1983. Even the movie's timing was bad, but still, it's all about games, so it has to be here on this list.