The 10 Best Movies Based on Fighting Games, Ranked

Although a part of one of the most prominent fighting game adaptation sagas, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is not the best. It is a film that requires an incredible amount of patience and suspension of disbelief. This ill-fated sequel tries really hard to capitalise on the cult following of the original, but gets itself all in a muddle. 

Picking up immediately after the events of the first film, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation suffered from the recasting of several key cast members and the opening killing of a fan favourite character. It does at least feature Brian Thompson as the mighty Shao Kahn and gives audiences a first look at the whole Animality side of the game series.

In DOA: Dead or Alive a group of martial artists are invited to participate in a fighting tournament known as ‘Dead or Alive.’ The winner will take home a prize of $10 million, and as such, the event draws in a range of interesting characters. Fighting games are renowned for having fewer female characters than male, but DOA: Dead or Alive ensures that there is a strong female presence.

However, it fails to do much to change how overly-sexualised female game characters are and features the scantily-clad Holly Vallance, Jaime Pressly, and Devon Aoki as game characters brought to life. A very silly and threadbare plot barely keeps the wheels on; DOA is only worth watching for ‘00s nostalgia.

When it comes to movies based on fighting games, The King of Fighters is something of a deep cut. Neither the game, nor its movie adaptation are particularly well-known, with only those truly devoted to the subgenre having sought either out. When it comes to the film it does, like so many fighting game adaptations, get too caught up in trying to rationalise all the fighting.

In truth, the audience just wants to see their favourite game characters throw down and The King of Fighters inability to focus on this causes a significant loss of momentum. The King of Fighters does, however, feature an able cast and so it is worth watching it to see the likes of Maggie Q, Ray Park, and Deadpool director David Leitch battling it out.

Whereas most fighting games follow the beat ‘em up formula, Double Dragon saw gamers control either Billy or Jimmy Lee as they battled their way across a variety of levels. The gameplay is very similar to the brilliant Streets of Rage, but while that is yet to get the movie treatment, Double Dragon did. 

Starring Mark Dacascos and Scott Wolf as the Lee Brothers, Double Dragon was an early video game adaptation and as such wasn’t quite sure what to do with itself. Playing as a funny hybrid of Super Mario Bros. meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Double Dragon was staple viewing for a generation and provided early proof that Mark Dacascos is an exceptional martial artist.

If you grew up with a Playstation, you have almost certainly played at least one Tekken game. The series was very much Sony’s answer to Nintendo’s Street Fighter and Sega’s Mortal Kombat, and Tekken 2 might just be the perfect fighting game.

Seeing other games make the leap to live-action films, Tekken eventually followed suit. For fans of the video games Tekken is full of familiar lore and Easter eggs, and features a raft of favourite characters. Its absolute jewel is the casting of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Heihachi Mishima, the actor most famous for starring in other high-profile game series.

Throughout all of the Street Fighter games, Chun-Li has been a firm fan favourite, and so a film focused solely on her made sense. The resulting movie, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, sadly flew under the radar, but with the new Street Fighter due out late 2026, now is a great time to catch up.

Starring Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, this film deserves extra credit for championing one of the few female characters in the series’ roster. After the dastardly Bison kidnaps her father, Chun-Li spends years training to get her vengeance, making the movie more like a traditional martial art revenge movie than a typical fighting game adaptation.

2021 gave audiences the first live-action Mortal Kombat film since Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. Thankfully, it was a massive step-up from that misfire and introduced an entire new generation of film fans to the tournament for control of Earthrealm.

There are imperfections, like a heavy focus on setting up lore rather than letting characters fight, and being staged in the lead-up to a tournament, rather than during. However, Mortal Kombat is still a very entertaining time. The opening sequence, featuring Hiroyuki Sanada and Joe Taslim as iconic enemies Scorpion and Sub-Zero is simply breathtaking and cues up the rest of the movie nicely.

While its predecessor made good inroads, Mortal Kombat II managed to surpass it. Learning from mistakes of the past, this new movie put the focus back on the tournament itself. Rather than a lot of stuffy, exposition heavy sequences, Mortal Kombat II packed itself with fight scene, after fight scene, after fight scene. The result is a movie that is light on plot, but that’s exactly the spirit of a fighting game.

Historically, most of the lore in these games is simply what is written in the character bio, or as in Tekken, who they have to face in their individual boss level. They are not deep and meaningful games and to see this mirrored in an adaptation so faithfully conjures up the same adrenaline-pumped levels of fun from playing the video game.

2026 sees the arrival of a new Street Fighter film, but, if we’re honest, it’s going to have to do a really good job to beat the original. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Ming-Na Wen, and Kylie Minogue, Street Fighter had one of the wildest casts going. Unlike some of its counterparts, there was some semblance of plot with Jean-Claude’s Colonel Guile teaming up with street fighters Ryu and Ken to infiltrate and take down the evil Bison’s empire.

Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the biggest action starts of the ‘80s and ‘90s and Street Fighter proves why. Add to that Kylie acting tough and Raúl Juliá chewing up the scenery as Bison, and Street Fighter was a pretty perfect slice of action movie cheese.

Paul W. S. Anderson is a director who comes under more flack than he should. Okay, not all of his Resident Evil movies are winners, but both Event Horizon and Mortal Kombat are brilliant. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat manages to be the most perfect fusion of martial art movie and video game adaptation, hitting familiar story beats while also showcasing some solid fighting work. Highlights include the neck-breaking battle between bitter rivals Sonya Blade and Kano, as well as Johnny Cage’s fights with both Scorpion, and Prince Goro.

Robin Shou makes a great Lui Kang, Christopher Lambert is an exceptional Lord Raiden, and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa absolutely steals the movie as the villainous Shang Tsung. What truly sets Mortal Kombat apart from all of its fighting game movie peers, though, is that iconic theme song, Techno-Syndrome, by The Immortals.