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While most video game adaptations fail to receive wider attention, some stand apart with their visual presentations and beyond-class performances. In recent times, experiments in this genre have given birth to several blockbusters. Here are our top picks for best video game adaptations, celebrated worldwide for their storytelling without compromising the connection with their roots. Best Movies and TV Shows Adapted from Video Games . The Witcher Another of Netflix’s successful adaptations, The Witcher, released in December 2019, a three-season-long TV series, mesmerizes fans and audiences by presenting Henry Cavil as the Geralt of Rivia, a monster-hunting mutated superhuman assassin. The series weaves its story, focusing on the romantic tension between two magical beings, Geralt and Yennefer. The latter is a witch who gained power and beauty by sacrificing fertility. Both of them are out in a dark, gory, and dangerous world to serve the purpose of their design, to kill evil creatures while protecting others they love. Read more: Best Squid Game-inspired mobile games for Android & iOS in 2025 Arcane No words can express the impact on viewers of Netflix’s evocative, high-octane TV series Arcane, the animated interpretation of the League of Legends. The show was first released on Netflix in November 2021. The story keeps two orphan sisters, Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) and Powder (Ella Purnell), at its centre and unfolds following their struggle to live up to one another’s expectations. As fate takes different routes for the sisters, it parts them by distance, moral ground, and eventually by sparking an intense everlasting rivalry. The world in Arcane matches two sisters’ struggles as the people are divided and fighting each other from different moral grounds. The beauty of its well-crafted, fast-paced storytelling and mastery in building a futuristic failed utopia full of arresting and mind-boggling characters, elements, and events make Arcane easily the greatest animated TV series to date. Mortal Kombat The cult-favourite fighting game Mortal Kombat was redefined for a new-age audience in the 2021 movie of the same title. Showing no sign of suppressing the gaming series' fatality and gore, the Mortal Kombat movie shines brighter in every aspect than its predecessors, released nearly 25 years ago. Read more: February 2025 Video Game Releases: Top Titles You Can’t Miss With gripping one-to-one fighting sequences styled with the same classic moves from the game, the movie captures the true essence of its source material. After its smashing hit at the box office, Warner Bros, the producer of the movie, announced a sequel, which will appear in October 2025. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City Resident Evil, one of the most intriguing zombie-inspired horror games, relaunched its live-action adaptation on Nov. 24, 2021, after a four-year hiatus since the last installment of the original series. The latest take is titled “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City,” as it draws the audience into the titular Raccoon City, the economically shambled town struggling for life just like its few alive inhabitants. The movie combines elements from the first two parts of the gaming franchise and does its best to blend them into the new setting. Viewers may not get too many memorable action sequences, but they will have a chance to dip into their favourite horrid world once more. Read more: How To Make Money Playing Video Games Gran Turismo Sony Pictures’ sci-fi, sports action Gran Turismo, released in 2023, takes inspiration from both real life and games. The plot is based on a true story, while the name and the spirit represent a popular racing video game series published by Sony Entertainment. It tells the story of a young boy, Jann Mardenborough, who has spent much of his life attending his virtual race track. Living under the shadow of his father’s dream, Jann longs to introduce himself as a serious sportscar driver and finds his opening by making it into a shortlist of the world’s best virtual drivers. It leads him to get the opportunity to join real-life drivers in the world championship. The movie wells up a good narrative and delivers it with an appealing visual representation. 

Is there a more woebegone movie genre than the video game adaptation? This is the pantheon of “Max Payne,” “Wing Commander” and “Assassin’s Creed.” In the 27 years since the first video game movie, “Super Mario Bros.,” these adaptations have been so regularly mocked that you might think the genre was -- like a teetering fighter in “Mortal Kombat” surrounded by chants of “Finish him!” -- on its last legs. And yet, Hollywood is increasingly viewing video games as one of the ripest, richest veins of intellectual property outside of comic books. Even as much of the film business slowed over the last year, the hunt for the kind of IP that has fueled an overwhelming share of worldwide box-office ticket sales has continued unabated. The video game movie isn’t finished. It might even be just pressing “Start.” On Friday, Warner Bros. will release a new, rebooted “Mortal Kombat” 26 years after the first adaptation of the martial arts fighter. It was then just the fourth video game movie, coming on the heels of “Double Dragon” and “Street Fighter,” with Jean-Claude Van Damme. This was well before the IP land rush started by Marvel’s success more than a decade later. “Apollo 13” was the No. 2 film at the box office in 1995. Now, a bloodier, R-rated “Mortal Kombat” signals a new cycle for video game adaptations. After years of misfires and flops, it’s lately seemed like a new level has been unlocked for one of the movies’ most derided genres. In 2019, “Detective Pikachu,” based on the Nintendo game, grossed more than $400 million worldwide for Warner Bros. Last year, “Sonic the Hedgehog” became the genre’s highest grosser; a sequel is already underway. Netflix, which on Wednesday suggested it may invest more deeply in gaming, has found one of its biggest hits -- the streamer’s answer to “Game of Thrones” -- in “The Witcher.” The Henry Cavill-led series is based on a fantasy novel series that found fame as a popular video game. No one is engraving Oscars or Emmys yet. But it may be that video game adaptations aren’t cursed, after all. They were just going through some growing pains.