In celebration of the embarrassingly-limp debut of the new Borderlands movie, review aggregate outlet Metacritic has presented a list of every video-game-to-film adaptation that exists in its database, ranking them from the worst to the best, according to its polled critical reviews (read it here with fantastic commentary from Jason Dietz).
I’m honestly a touch surprised at some of the rankings closer to the top, especially with the 2021 Mortal Kombat film being beaten to the top 10 by Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and the Monster Hunter movie, but perhaps that’s just me. Borderlands, for what it’s worth, has debuted at #32 of a total of 42 films with a Metacritic rating of just 29/100. As expected, anything touched by Uwe Boll has congealed around the bottom of the ladder. I’d actually completely forgotten the movie that scored the highest accolade here existed, let alone how surprisingly decent it was – give it a watch if you’re yet to!
And, yes, the Metacritic scores on all of these films might look alarmingly low to anyone accustomed to the video game side of the website – it’s worth keeping in mind the scale for movie reviews is quite different than it is for games, hence why a score of 40-60 is considered “mixed” or “average” as opposed to the 50-74 margin for games. Pure guesswork on my part, but I’d also reckon there’s a bit of a skew in more recently-released films that’ve been covered by traditionally gaming-focused outlets, for similar reasons.
Every Movie Based on a Video Game, Ranked: https://t.co/c3lVPGzSIl
#32 – Borderlands [29] is in theaters now…. pic.twitter.com/18ZkcBTFU3— metacritic (@metacritic) August 9, 2024
There are also a few other caveats here – Metacritic hasn’t included any animated or non-English language films, nor films about games (like last year’s Gran Turismo), and some movies haven’t had enough professional reviews to have ever been assigned a Metacritic rating.
But hey, who doesn’t love a ranking list they can scroll down while yelling “Why the hell isn’t this higher??” so take a look:
#42: Alone in the Dark (2005)
Metacritic rating: 9
#41: Mortal Kombat Annihilation (1997)
Metacritic rating: 11
#40: House of the Dead (2003)
Metacritic rating: 15
#39: In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)
Metacritic rating: 15
#38: Silent Hill: Revelation (2012)
Metacritic rating: 16
#37: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Metacritic rating: 17
#36: BloodRayne (2005)
Metacritic rating: 18
#35: Wing Commander (1999)
Metacritic rating: 21
#34: Postal (2007)
Metacritic rating: 22
#33: Hitman: Agent 47 (2015)
Metacritic rating: 28
#32: Borderlands (2024)
Metacritic rating: 29
#31: Silent Hill (2006)
Metacritic rating: 31
#30: Max Payne (2008)
Metacritic rating: 31
#29: Warcraft (2016)
Metacritic rating: 32
#28: Five Nights at Freddy’s (2023)
Metacritic rating: 33
#27: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Metacritic rating: 33
#26: Doom (2005)
Metacritic rating: 34
#25: Street Fighter (1994)
Metacritic rating: 34
#24: Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Metacritic rating: 35
#23: Hitman (2007)
Metacritic rating: 35
#22: Resident Evil (2002)
Metacritic rating: 35
#21: Assassin’s Creed (2016)
Metacritic rating: 36
#20: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
Metacritic rating: 36
#19: Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
Metacritic rating: 37
#18: DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)
Metacritic rating: 38
#17: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Metacritic rating: 39
#16: Need for Speed (2014)
Metacritic rating: 39
#15: Double Dragon (1994)
Metacritic rating: 40
#14: Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
Metacritic rating: 41
#13: Mortal Kombat (2021)
Metacritic rating: 44
#12: Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021)
Metacritic rating: 44
#11: Rampage (2018)
Metacritic rating: 45
#10: Uncharted (2022)
Metacritic rating: 45
#9: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022)
Metacritic rating: 47
#8: Monster Hunter (2020)
Metacritic rating: 47
#7: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Metacritic rating: 47
#6: Tomb Raider (2018)
Metacritic rating: 48
#5: Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2017)
Metacritic rating: 49
#4: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)
Metacritic rating: 50
#3: Pokémon Detective Pikachu (2019)
Metacritic rating: 53
#2: Mortal Kombat (1995)
Metacritic rating:60
#1: Werewolves Within (2021)
Metacritic rating: 66 (the only “green” Metacritic score in this entire list!)
