34 greatest video game references in movies and TV

Video games are so much more than a lazy pastime. To some filmmakers, video games are an extension of their human characters, allowing them to demonstrate talents in a novel way. Or they are a narrative tool to foreshadow events to come. Other times, they’re just product placement. But no matter how they appear, video game cameos in movies and TV shows are always a lot of fun. But which inclusion of games and gaming hardware in movies and TV are some of the best of all time?

With video games amassing as much cultural influence as other mainstream entertainment, it’s unsurprising to see video games actually featured on the big or small screen. Below, we collect some of the greatest all-time instances of a video game - PC, console, arcade, and even a peripheral - in movies and TV. To be clear, we’re excluding some too-obvious entries, like The Last Starfighter and Tron (and its sequel, Tron: Legacy) because they primarily center around fictional video games rather than real ones. We’re also not including direct adaptations of video games, for obvious reasons.

Without further ado, insert your quarter and press start. These are the 34 greatest instances of video games appearing in movies and TV.

34. Kung Fu Master (in Kung-Fu Master!)

At first blush, Agnès Varda maybe isn't the first filmmaker anyone would expect to include video games in her movies. But in 1988, the French New Wave titan released Kung-Fu Master!, a provocative drama about a divorced woman (played by Jane Birkin, who also wrote the film) who enters a relationship with a 14-year-old gamer - one who is obsessed with the revolutionary 1984 hit Kung Fu Master. Intimate and delicate in its taboo subject, Kung-Fu Master! isn't a "video game movie," but it hits hard like one.

33. Dragon’s Lair (in Stranger Things)

The infamous 1983 arcade video game, designed by renowned animator Don Bluth (of movies like The Secret of NIMH and The Land Before Time) opens Season 2 of the Netflix hit Stranger Things. The fantasy-obsessed adolescents from Hawkins eagerly try out the game at their local arcade, only to encounter crushing disappointment when they learn first-hand of its still-notorious difficulty. As is the case with many movies using video games, the presence of Dragon’s Lair in Stranger Things foreshadowed the coming arrival of the oversized Mind Flayer, who makes its presence known in Season 2 before appearing in the flesh in Season 3.

32. Missile Command (in Terminator 2: Judgment Day)

Early on in James Cameron’s sci-fi action epic Terminator 2: Judgment Day, John Connor (Edward Furlong) plays Missile Command, a 1980 shoot-‘em-up created by Atari. Its inclusion is not a throwaway. Like the plot of the movie, Missile Command is all about defending heavily populated cities from nuclear annihilation. What’s more: Missile Command doesn’t have an actual ending. The game is designed to get increasingly harder after every level to the point that losing is the only result. The inevitability of preventing the apocalypse, or Judgment Day, is very much a part of Terminator 2 as well.

31. All of Grandma’s Boy

If you could peek inside the mind of a twenty-something dude tuned into G4TV circa 2005, you would find the movie Grandma’s Boy. In this lurid comedy, a 35-year-old slacker named Alex (Allen Covert) works as a video game tester and falls in love with his supervisor. While the in-development game the story revolves around is fictional, titled “Eternal Death Slayer 3,” the movie does feature real games like Dance Dance Revolution as well as posters of BloodRayne 2 and Game Informer magazine covers. Also: The game the movie’s lead character secretly works on, Demonik, was an actual game intended for the Xbox 360. After development was canceled, materials were given for the filmmakers of Grandma’s Boy to use in the movie.

30. Ms. Pac-Man (in Friends)

As a late wedding present, Phoebe gifts Monica and Chandler an actual Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine. The game becomes a source of contention in the apartment, with Chandler becoming so obsessed that his hand freezes into a claw shape. Later, Phoebe and Monica desperately try to beat Chandler’s high scores to erase his vulgar words etched in the rankings. As arcades withered in cultural influence in the 2000s, it was entirely believable that someone like Phoebe could buy a whole machine and leave it in an impossibly spacious Manhattan loft.

29. Street Fighter (in It Chapter Two)

In the 2019 sequel to It, the blockbuster movie version to Stephen King’s epic horror novel, an adult Richie (played by Bill Hader) is a successful stand-up comedian who still has anxieties about his closeted homosexuality. His trauma is rooted in a haunting memory of playing Street Fighter with the cousin of his bully Henry; when Richie offers to play another round, Henry yells out homophobic slurs, embarrassing him in front of everyone. That memory has never vanished for Richie, and as an adult, Pennywise taunts him over it: “Play a game with me, would ya? How about Street Fighter? Oh yes, you liked that one, don’t you?

28. Duck Hunt (in Boyz in the Hood)

John Singleton’s masterwork, the coming-of-age hood film Boyz in the Hood, takes place a few years before its own release year of 1991. It’s set in 1984, and one hilarious moment cements that fact: The inclusion of Duck Hunt. A minor character named Monster (Baldwin C. Sykes) is seen playing Duck Hunt, bragging about his skills with a gun - he’s even aiming straight into the camera - before revealing he’s just playing Nintendo. Of course, this is foreshadowing darker events that unfold later on, when Monster meets rival gang members and shoots them dead. Some trivia for you: Gamers know the packaged gun that came with Duck Hunt was the red and gray NES Zapper, which looks like a sci-fi laser. The realistic-looking revolver Monster uses instead comes from the Japanese home release version of Wild Gunman, another Nintendo light shooter.

27. Rock Band, Halo, Wii Sports, and vintage games (in The Big Bang Theory)

Given that its cast of characters are nerdy physicists and engineers, of course The Big Bang Theory heavily features video games. In fact, the characters’ apartments host various nights revolving around specific games. There’s “Rock Band Night” (where they passionately belt out Red Hot Chili Peppers), “Halo Night,” “Wii Bowling Night,” and even a night for vintage video games. Though they may not be the most tolerable people you could imagine playing games with, they at least have a wide selection. Or at least, they had, until burglars stole all of their consoles in Season 3.

26. Computer Space (in Soylent Green)

The first ever commercially released arcade game, Computer Space developed by Nolan Bushnell, enjoys a memorable cameo in the terrifying dystopian sci-fi classic Soylent Green. Partway into the movie, actress Leigh Taylor-Young (as the character Shirl) is seen playing Computer Space. The story takes place in a then-futuristic 2022, with Computer Space meant to illustrate a technologically sophisticated future amid bleak environmental and economical collapse. (So basically, the movie is very accurate.) Computer Space’s brief presence in Soylent Green marks the first time that a video game is seen in a movie.

25. Twisted Metal 2 (in Big Daddy)

It’s a brief moment, and any game could have been featured in the context of the story. But in the Adam Sandler comedy Big Daddy, released in 1999, young Julian (played by brothers Dylan and Cole Sprouse) shirks his schoolwork to play Twisted Metal 2 on the original PlayStation. Although Sonny has illegally adopted Julian while his real father (played by Jon Stewart) is away on business, he still does the work of a good parent to convince Julian to put down the games and get his work done. And he does it in a way only he can understand: through a lecture from his hero, Scuba Steve.

24. Monster Hunter (in Tár)

When it comes to the acclaimed psychological drama Tár, which stars Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett as a renowned musical conductor accused of misconduct, describing its inclusion of the Monster Hunter franchise verges on spoiling a truly worthwhile experience. We’ll refrain from the specifics, and only say that Monster Hunter appears in the movie to serve an elaborate point about Lydia Tár herself. What that point means is up to you as a viewer. And no matter which way you look at it, it’s kind of hilarious that it’s there.

23. NHL All-Star Hockey (in Mallrats)

When slacker Brodie (Jason Lee) is dumped by his girlfriend Rene (Shannon Doherty), he’s left high and dry in the middle of playing NHL All-Star Hockey on the Sega Saturn. Writer/director Kevin Smith is an avid hockey fan, and practically all of his movies feature nods to the fine gentlemanly sport in some way. In the case of Mallrats, Brodie begins a long journey to finally growing up when a beautiful woman walks out on him while his focus is fixated on virtual hockey. Note that Brodie is playing as the Hartford Whalers, a club that went defunct in 1997. Truly, no movie can get more 1990s than this.

22. Wrestle Jam/Pro Wrestling (in The Wrestler)

It loses points for including a fake game instead of a real one. But a vintage NES plays a pivotal role in Darren Aronofsky’s celebrated 2009 drama The Wrestler. Bored in his trailer park, has-been wrestling star Randy Robinson (Mickey Rourke) invites a neighborhood kid for a round of “Wrestle Jam” on Nintendo, which includes Randy as a playable character. During their match, the kid blasts the game for being so old while hyping the then-cutting edge Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. (The point is to reinforce Randy's irrelevance, and to stay in spaces where he’s remembered.) Because “The Ram” wasn’t a real pro wrestler, the filmmakers made a fake game called Wrestle Jam. But there’s no doubt their primary influence was the classic NES title Pro Wrestling, which Wrestle Jam bears a striking resemblance.

21. Wii Sports and Donkey Kong (in (500) Days of Summer)

Marc Webb’s twee 2009 indie (500) Days of Summer has not one, but two successive scenes where video games are played. First, lovestruck Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) plays Wii Sports - specifically Wii Tennis - with his younger sister, played by Chloe Grace-Moretz. In the scene, Tom is blindly enthusiastic about his crush on his new coworker Summer (Zooey Deschanel), but his sister hits him with reality when she tells him that his interest in her is shallow at best. They’re combative, which is why they’re playing head-to-head.

In the very next scene, Tom is still talking about Summer, only now to his best friends at a hip L.A. cafe with coffee tables featuring games. This time they’re playing Donkey Kong, and although the camera doesn’t zoom into the game, its distinct sounds are audible when they lose. Again, video games serve an illustrative point. Not only is Tom trying to “win” his girl (as you do in Donkey Kong, by rescuing Pauline), but he’s going to lose.

20. SEGA Game Gear (in Surf Ninjas)

Riding pop culture’s ninja wave of the 1990s was the family action-comedy Surf Ninjas, where California teenagers learn about their warrior lineage in the fictional southeast Asian country Patusan. During the making of the film, studio New Line Cinema entered a relationship with Sega of America. This resulted in the movie’s youngest character carrying around a Game Gear and playing a game that predicts the events of their story. That very game was actually made and released for Sega consoles just before the movie opened in theaters, making Surf Ninjas an industry forerunner in the market of movie tie-in games.

19. Nintendo Power Glove (in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare)

Now he’s playing with power! In what is still technically the final installment of the original Nightmare on Elm Street film series, Robert Englund’s Freddy Kruger busts out his own custom Nintendo Power Glove to torment a few helpless teenagers. The Power Glove is an infamous add-on peripheral for the original Nintendo console, memorable for its novel but inconsistent functionality. (Very few games on the NES actually made use of the glove.) The Power Glove had an official appearance in the 1989 movie The Wizard, but Freddy’s macabre variant in Freddy’s Dead gave the dying accessory its last breath.

18. Injustice 2 (in Superman & Lois)

Imagine if your dad was Superman, and you still tell him to his face that Raiden from Mortal Kombat is a cooler character. That happens in the first episode of Superman & Lois, the live-action Superman series that premiered on The CW in 2021. Jordan Kent, one of the teenage sons of Clark Kent and Lois Lane (played by Alex Garfin) is seen in the first episode playing Injustice 2, the acclaimed fighting game featuring characters from both the DC Comics universe and a few from Mortal Kombat. Jordan has no clue his lame dad is actually the Man of Steel, so it’s amusing - and embarrassing - for Clark (Tyler Hoechlin) to see his son using Raiden to pummel him. Try not to think too hard about Jordan booting up the game’s story mode that directly acknowledges that Superman is a guy named Clark Kent.

17. Fortnite (in Unhinged)

Very few people saw Unhinged, a dark R-rated thriller starring Russell Crowe as a mentally ill man whose road rage leads him to stalk a single mother named Rachel (Caren Pistorius) and her children. (The movie was released in theaters during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it was potentially hazardous to enter public spaces.) Bizarrely, Unhinged contains an elaborate reference to Fortnite, with a young character spelling out their preferred strategy of “camping” (to stay in one place in camouflage to pick off other players). This foreshadows the end of the movie, where Caren outsmarts Crowe’s Tom Cooper by camping in a closet with a pair of scissors to kill him. No one actually plays Fortnite in Unhinged, but it is still maybe the first movie where camping is a valid tactic used by the protagonists.

16. All of Wreck-It Ralph

In 2012, Disney Animation Studios paid homage to the colorful world of arcades with Wreck-It Ralph, about a video game villain named Ralph (John C. Reilly) who tries to prove he’s actually a good guy at heart. Although Wreck-It Ralph’s main characters all come from fictional pastiches of other video game genres, from racing to sci-fi shooters, the movie also boasts a remarkable collection of character cameos from actual gaming franchises like Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario, Street Fighter, Tapper, Pac-Man, and Dance Dance Revolution. In fact, it’s none other than Street Fighter’s Zangief who offers Ralph this bit of wisdom in the movie: “You are Bad Guy, but this does not mean you are bad guy.”

15. OutRun (in Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut)

In Richard Kelly’s cult horror-thriller Donnie Darko from 2001, troubled teenager Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) has a deep conversation with his girlfriend Gretchen (Jena Malone) while playing OutRun, the wildly influential arcade racing game from Sega. The moment foreshadows the climax of the movie, which ends in a fatal car accident where Gretchen is run over by a red car. (That technically counts as a spoiler, if not for the fact the movie takes a dramatic turn even after that.) While the scene was omitted from the theatrical cut, it is restored in the extended Director’s Cut version.

14. Doom II (in Grosse Pointe Blank)

Doom II never officially had an arcade version. The game was made just for home computers in 1994. But in the 1997 comedy Grosse Pointe Blank, which stars John Cusack as an assassin who returns home for his high school reunion, a convenience store clerk is seen playing the heck out of a Doom II cabinet while blissfully unaware there is a violent shootout happening behind him. The filmmakers received permission from id Software to create and feature a Doom II arcade cabinet even though gamers couldn’t actually play Doom II anywhere but home.

13. Karate Champ (in Bloodsport)

One of the first arcade games to ever feature one-on-one competitive combat was Karate Champ, developed by defunct studio Technōs Japan and released in arcades in 1984. Early on in the cult 1988 movie Bloodsport, lead protagonist Frank Dux (Jean-Claude Van Damme in a star-making role) is challenged by a rival to a few friendly rounds of Karate Champ. The scene is designed to illustrate Frank Dux’s total mastery of martial arts, being not only a U.S. Army captain but a ninjutsu master, so that even in a virtual arena, Frank can’t be so easily defeated.

12. TimeSplitters 2 (in Shaun of the Dead)

Before the zombie apocalypse begins in Shaun of the Dead, the classic 2004 horror-comedy directed by Edgar Wright, Shaun (Simon Pegg) tries to tell his lazy roommate and best friend Ed (Nick Frost) that he has to get a job or move out. While doing so, Ed is playing TimeSplitters 2, a sci-fi shooter released for home consoles in 2002. The game is not only referential in that it contains a zombies mode, but its presence is meant to show how much Shaun and Ed’s survival during the outbreak is structured like a video game. They “level up” into expert zombie killers through trial and error and obtain increasingly powerful upgrades. Also, Shaun’s tip to Ed to pick off an enemy from “top left” comes back later in the movie.

11. The King of Fighters 2002 (in SPL: Sha Po Lang/Kill Zone)

Hong Kong is renowned worldwide for its kung fu action movies. But the star-studded 2005 film SPL: Sha P Lang (titled Kill Zone in English-speaking markets) introduces haunting consequences to unrestricted violence. Action movie legend Donnie Yen stars in SPL as a heroic cop named Ma Kwun who has sworn off using physical violence. Halfway through the film, we learn the haunting reason why. In the past, Ma Kwun’s aggressive arrest of a drug trafficker left them mentally disabled. Consumed by guilt, Ma Kwun makes amends by spending time with his arrestee at arcades. In the movie they play The King of Fighters 2002, which is only sensible when you’ve got a certified butt-kicker like Donnie Yen sitting behind joysticks.

10. Killzone 3, God of War: Ascension, Monument Valley, The Stanley Parable, Agar.io (in House of Cards)

Remember when Netflix’s House of Cards was considered a prestige television drama? Kevin Spacey’s ruthless politician Frank Underwood (who ascends to the position of President of the United States at one point) is a huge gamer, his interest in simulated violence indicative of his relentless thirst to win. He appears to be a PlayStation fanboy too, with console exclusives like Killzone 3 and God of War: Ascension as some of his selections. In later seasons, Frank Underwood turns to mobile games like Monument Valley, while indie games like The Stanley Parable and Agar.io are introduced to him by others.

9. Wild Gunman (in Back to the Future II)

While exploring the “future” world of 2015 in Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is stunned to see an arcade cabinet of Wild Gunman, an iconic light gun shooter game from Nintendo. Marty enthusiastically shows some kids (one of them a very young Elijah Wood) how to play, only for them to scoff at its primitive design. The Back to the Future sequels were made back-to-back, allowing this scene to demonstrate Marty’s marksmanship before traveling to the real Old West in Back to the Future Part III.

8. League of Legends (in Saturday Night Live)

Saturday Night Live has done a handful of great skits featuring video games. There’s Michael B. Jordan and Bowen Yang in a disastrous recording session for Street Fighter 6, Mikey Day and Kyle Mooney recounting a traumatic memory with the Super Mario franchise, and Pedro Pascal proving a Last of Us-style version of Mario Kart for HBO could win Emmys. But an underrated, and maddeningly accurate portrayal of gaming culture, is found in “E-Sports Reporter,” where Chance the Rapper - as Lazlo, a Knicks reporter for MSG - is blindsided by the bizarro world of esports. Specifically, it’s League of Legends that Chance fails to comprehend. When hysterical fangirls show up at the end wearing furry animal hats, that’s when we knew SNL did some serious research.

7. All of 8-Bit Christmas

Although it was unceremoniously dumped on HBO Max in November 2021, the nostalgic holiday comedy 8-Bit Christmas is a true love letter to 1980s pop culture that also doesn’t try so hard. (Looking at you, Ready Player One.) Basically a successor to A Christmas Story made for a new generation of parents, 8-Bit Christmas stars Neil Patrick Harris as a father who recounts to his own kid one memorable Christmas where he hoped to have the coveted Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) under his tree. Whether you’re watching it during the yuletide season or not, 8-Bit Christmas is joyful, timeless as it is time-specific, showing how some parts of childhood never really change.

6. All of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

To sit here and list every minute video game reference in Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the cult movie adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novel series, is a monumental feat reserved only for the mad. While some references are plainly stated (“Did you know that the original word for Pac-Man was Puck-Man?”), others are more obtuse or rooted in pastiche. (The whole movie’s plot is structured like a typical arcade fighting game, for example.) Just know that the entire movie is a jam-packed celebration of the nerdy millennial mind, one raised on equal parts Nintendo and cable TV.

5. All of Mythic Quest

In early 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, Apple TV+ released one of its most popular original offerings: Mythic Quest, a scripted workplace comedy set inside the studio of a (fictional) popular fantasy online RPG. Created by some of the same minds behind It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the show co-stars Rob McElhenney and Charlotte Nicdao as Ian Grimm and Poppy Li respectively, two leaders who butt heads over the integrity and creativity of Mythic Quest. Although the titular Mythic Quest is fictional, the show is made in partnership with publisher Ubisoft, which provides many game-related assets for the show as well as consulting its writers on the finer points of game design.

4. All of Tetris, the 2023 movie on Apple TV+

It may be unfair to say that Tetris features an elaborate video game reference, because what else could it be about? From director Jon S. Baird and released on the Apple TV+ streaming platform, Tetris is a biographical political thriller that tells how much the iconic game - with the building blocks and the vanishing lines - played an unlikely but pivotal role in the Cold War. Long story short, Tetris was created by Soviet engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1985, and its success inspired a red-hot pursuit from various companies, including ones from America and Japan, and the negotiation for those commercial rights were smack dab in geopolitical tensions. While Tetris (the movie) obviously takes creative liberties, the fact remains: Even in the world of games, no one is playing around.

3. Street Fighter II (in City Hunter)

In the Jackie Chan-led action-comedy City Hunter (based on the hit Japanese manga series), Chan’s character Ryo Saeba, a private investigator, gets beat up by bad guys in an arcade. When he’s thrown into a Street Fighter II machine, the electric shock causes him to hallucinate, and the world of Street Fighter II begins bleeding into his real world. While his opponent is dressed like Ken, Chan alternates between sumo wrestler E. Honda and Chinese kung fu master Chun-Li. The whole movie is a stone cold classic of Chan’s peak era, but seeing Chan in Chun-Li cosplay takes the cake.

2. World of Warcraft (in South Park)

With its story centered on fourth grade boys in Colorado, South Park has featured a thousand and one references to video games both real (Guitar Hero and Rock Band) and fictional (the Okama GameSphere) . But no gaming reference has topped the show’s Emmy-winning episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft.” Released at the apex of World of Warcraft’s popularity in 2006, the boys grow obsessed with leveling up in the famous MMO to seek revenge on an anonymous high-level player. Comically gross and absurdly hilarious, “Make Love, Not Warcraft” is easily one of South Park’s greatest episodes, being a delirious half-hour of polygonal heroism.

1. All of The Wizard

Once, long before the days of the internet and gamers previewed new software in splashy, elaborate presentations, there was The Wizard. In 1989, Nintendo and Universal collaborated together for the family movie The Wizard (from director Todd Holland) starring Fred Savage as an older sibling who takes his younger brother - who wields inhuman mastery over video games - to a gaming tournament in California.

The movie notably featured real video game titles like Ninja Gaiden, Red Racer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon, and Contra. But nothing is more important than its inclusion of Super Mario Bros. 3, with the movie providing Nintendo fans a glimpse at the game for the first time. (There’s also the unintentionally hilarious demonstration of the PowerGlove, which someone describes with a straight face, “It’s so bad.”) The Wizard is one giant E3-style presentation for Nintendo in cheesy ‘80s movie form, and honestly, the world would be better if there were more movies like it.