The highest-grossing film made from a video game is The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), which sold 1.36 billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Until a few years ago an adaptation from a game in Hollywood was almost synonymous with failure; but from 2023 onward three game-based films have reached about one billion dollars or more: The Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026), and A Minecraft Movie (2025). On this page we have reviewed the highest-grossing films adapted from games, a few better-known films, and successful series in this field.
The highest-grossing films made from games
| Film | Year | Source game | Worldwide gross (million dollars) |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Super Mario Bros. Movie | 2023 | Super Mario (Nintendo) | 1361 |
| The Super Mario Galaxy Movie | 2026 | Super Mario (Nintendo) | 1013 |
| A Minecraft Movie | 2025 | Minecraft (Mojang) | 960 |
| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | 2024 | Sonic (Sega) | 492 |
| Warcraft | 2016 | Warcraft (Blizzard) | 439 |
| Pokemon: Detective Pikachu | 2019 | Pokemon | about 430 to 450 |
| Rampage | 2018 | Rampage (Midway) | 428 |
| Uncharted | 2022 | Uncharted (Naughty Dog) | 407 |
| Sonic the Hedgehog 2 | 2022 | Sonic (Sega) | 405 |
| The Angry Birds Movie | 2016 | Angry Birds (Rovio) | 352 |
| Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | 2010 | Prince of Persia (Ubisoft) | 336 |
| Sonic the Hedgehog | 2020 | Sonic (Sega) | 321 |
| Five Nights at Freddy's | 2023 | Five Nights at Freddy's | 297 |
The figures are theatrical grosses without inflation adjustment. For Detective Pikachu, sources give two different figures. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and the new Resident Evil (2026) may still be in release.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
An Illumination studio animation in collaboration with Nintendo, with a budget of about 100 million dollars. Mario has appeared in more than two hundred games since 1981 and had reached film twice before: a Japanese animation in 1986 and a live-action film in 1993 that failed at the box office. The 2023 version in its own time broke the record for the largest opening of a game-based film and became the highest-grossing film adapted from a game. Its sequel, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, in 2026 passed the one-billion-dollar mark.
A Minecraft Movie (2025)
A Warner Bros. live-action film starring Jack Black and Jason Momoa. Minecraft has no set story, and the player builds a cubic world of their own in it; even so the film, with a budget of about 150 million dollars, reached 960 million dollars in box office revenue and its opening in the United States broke Mario's record. A large part of its success came back to teenage viewers who knew the game.
The Sonic trilogy (2020 to 2024)
The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog in 2019 drew so much criticism over Sonic's appearance that Paramount changed the design and postponed the release by several months. The film grossed 321 million dollars and its two sequels each time had higher box office; the third installment, with 492 million dollars, is the highest-grossing part of this trilogy. Sonic is a rare example in which the film put the old game back on sale; we have examined this relationship in Video game adaptations; still successful.
Warcraft (2016)
Warcraft, made by Duncan Jones, is based on Blizzard's strategy game series, which has been released since 1994. The film, with a budget of about 160 million dollars, was unsuccessful in the United States, but its large box office in China brought total box office revenue to 439 million dollars. Critics found the many characters and crowded story confusing for anyone who did not know the game.
Uncharted (2022)
Uncharted was made from the PlayStation exclusive game series that Naughty Dog has released since 2007. Tom Holland plays Nathan Drake, the treasure hunter. The film grossed 407 million dollars, and its success encouraged Sony to make more films from its own games, such as Gran Turismo (2023).
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
The Prince of Persia game was made by Jordan Mechner in 1989, and Ubisoft's The Sands of Time version was released in 2003. The Disney film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, with a budget of about 150 million dollars, grossed 336 million dollars; a figure that was low for its cost, and no sequel followed. The Iranian name and setting of the game have made it well known among Iranian gamers as well.
Resident Evil (2002 to 2016)
The six-part Resident Evil series starring Milla Jovovich is a free take on Capcom's horror games, which have been released since 1996. No installment on its own was a high-grossing film, but the six parts together grossed more than one billion dollars and made this series one of the highest-grossing game-based cinema franchises.
Silent Hill (2006)
Silent Hill was made from Konami's horror game (1999), and its story is close to the first game: a mother who, looking for her daughter, enters an abandoned, fog-covered town. The film grossed about 100 million dollars and, among fans of the game, is more popular than most adaptations of that period because of its fidelity to the game's atmosphere.
Unsuccessful adaptations: Assassin's Creed and Hitman
Assassin's Creed (2016), with Michael Fassbender and a budget of about 125 million dollars, grossed only about 240 million dollars. Its story did not tell any of the games in the series, and most of the film was set in the present, while fans had come for the games' historical periods. Hitman (2007) made a profit on a small budget but received poor reviews, and its remake in 2015 did not succeed either.
Series that were made from games
The most successful adaptations of the past few years have been series more than films, because a series has more room for the long stories of games.
- The Last of Us, HBO, from 2023. Season one kept many of the scenes and even the dialogue of Naughty Dog's 2013 game. The last episode of season one, despite coinciding with the Oscars, had 8.2 million viewers, the most viewers in that season. Season two was broadcast in 2025.
- Arcane, Netflix, 2021 and 2024. An animation from the world of the game League of Legends that in 2022 won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.
- Fallout, Amazon Prime Video, from 2024. Its broadcast raised sales of the older games in this series again.
- Castlevania, Netflix, 2017 to 2021. An adult animation that opened the way for more serious adaptations from games on platforms.
Why have adaptations only now succeeded?
Three changes stand out more than the rest. First, game companies have themselves entered production: Nintendo was a partner in making the Mario film, and Sony launched the PlayStation Productions branch for its games, so they no longer sell the adaptation rights to a studio that does not know the game. Second, the generation that grew up with these games is now both the audience and parents, and films such as Mario and Minecraft bring two generations to the cinema together. Third, new adaptations are more faithful to the story and atmosphere of the game; the very thing that was not in Assassin's Creed and was in The Last of Us.
Games that were made from films
The reverse path is older. The game E.T. (1982) for the Atari console was made from Spielberg's film and sold so badly that it became a symbol of the crash of the US game market in 1983. By contrast, GoldenEye 007 (1997) for Nintendo 64 was made from the James Bond film and was one of the best-selling games for that console. Star Wars and Harry Potter games are also among the best-selling games adapted from cinema.
Frequently asked questions
Which is the highest-grossing film made from a game?
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) with 1.36 billion dollars. After it have come The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and A Minecraft Movie.
Which is the best series made from a game?
Arcane and The Last of Us have received the most critical acclaim and awards. Arcane won an Emmy Award.
What films have been made from games with Iranian names?
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) from the game Prince of Persia. The story is set in a fictional ancient Iran, but both the game and the film were made in the West.
Sources
- List of highest-grossing films made from video games on English Wikipedia and its sources (Box Office Mojo and The Numbers), Mehr (September–October) 1405 (2026/27)
- Variety, viewership of the last episode of season one of The Last of Us
Machine-translated from Persian by Namafar; the Persian original is authoritative. Read the original in Persian