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Video games are so much more than a lazy pastime.
Or they are a narrative tool to foreshadow events to come.
Other times, theyre just product placement.
Were 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.
Kung Fu Master (in 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.
Its inclusion is not a throwaway.
Like the plot of the movie, Missile Command is all about defending heavily populated cities from nuclear annihilation.
Whats more: Missile Command doesnt have an actual ending.
After development was canceled, materials were given for the filmmakers of Grandmas Boy to use in the movie.
How about Street Fighter?
Oh yes, you liked that one, dont you?
Its set in 1984, and one hilarious moment cements that fact: The inclusion of Duck Hunt.
In fact, the characters apartments host various nights revolving around specific games.
Or at least, theyhad, until burglars stole all of their consoles in Season 3.
Partway into the movie, actress Leigh Taylor-Young (as the character Shirl) is seen playing Computer Space.
(So basically, the movie is very accurate.)
What that point means is up to you as a viewer.
And no matter which way you look at it, its kind of hilarious that its there.
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.
But a vintage NES plays a pivotal role in Darren Aronofskys celebrated 2009 drama The Wrestler.
(The point is to reinforce Randy’s irrelevance, and to stay in spaces where hes remembered.)
Because The Ram wasnt a real pro wrestler, the filmmakers made a fake game called Wrestle Jam.
Theyre combative, which is why theyre playing head-to-head.
Again, video games serve an illustrative point.
During the making of the film, studio New Line Cinema entered a relationship with Sega of America.
Nintendo Power Glove (in Freddys Dead: The Final Nightmare)
Now hes playing with power!
(Very few games on the NES actually made use of the glove.)
While the scene was omitted from the theatrical cut, it is restored in the extended Directors Cut version.
Doom II (in Grosse Pointe Blank)
Doom II never officially had an arcade version.
The game was made just for home computers in 1994.
While doing so, Ed is playing TimeSplitters 2, a sci-fi shooter released for home consoles in 2002.
They level up into expert zombie killers through trial and errorandobtain increasingly powerful upgrades.
Halfway through the film, we learn the haunting reason why.
In the past, Ma Kwuns 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.
Specifically, its League of Legends that Chance fails to comprehend.
(Looking at you, Ready Player One.)
All of Scott Pilgrim vs.
The World
To sit here and list every minute video game reference in Edgar Wrights Scott Pilgrim vs.
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 movies plot is structured like a typical arcade fighting game, for example.)
But no gaming reference has topped the shows Emmy-winning episode Make Love, Not Warcraft.
