If you're like me, your interest is piqued whenever you learn of a film involving games or gameplay. To satisfy my own curiosity and provide potential viewing choices for others, I've put together the following list of films which incorporate games. In selecting these films, I omitted any in which the game connection was only peripheral (The Manchurian Candidate). The idea was to find films whose game-related content make them of interest to gamers. If you've got some I missed, let me know.
Charade: Delightful animated short in which a frustrated man performs brilliant charades for a team of dimwits who guess every absurd answer but the right one.
Clue: A star-studded but disappointing adaptation of the board game, with three different endings— none as good as the Scooby Doo ending of Wayne's World.
Die Hard: With a Vengeance: Jeremy Irons forces Bruce Willis and Samuel Jackson into a deadly game of Simon Says. Along the way he confronts them with a number of brain teasers designed to distract them from his real goal: robbing New York's Federal Reserve.
Gotcha!: Anthony Edwards is a college student fond of a paintball game called Gotcha! While traveling in Europe he falls for a spy (Linda Fiorentino) and gets drawn into a real-life game.
House of Games: Superb psychological drama about a con man (Joe Mantegna) and the psychologist he draws into his world of marks and tells. Though a poker game is involved, the real game here is a much bigger one of cons within cons. Directed by David Mamet from his own screenplay, this is a must-see.
The Hustler / The Color of Money: The definitive pool films, the latter of which earned Paul Newman an Oscar. Newman takes on Minnesota Fats in The Hustler, then shepherds a flashy younger version of himself (Tom Cruise) 25 years later in The Color of Money.
Jumanji: An entire movie crafted around a the fictional board game. In the titular game, a roll-the-dice-move-your-mice affair perfectly suited to the inevitable licensed property from Hasbro, jungle creatures and hazards magically appear to confound the players. Robin Williams stars as a man who got sucked into the game as a boy and grew up trapped trapped in its otherworldy jungle. Now, suddenly freed, he must finish the game he started. Computer-generated effects are the real stars here. Hardly a stellar film, but Pauly Shore is mercifully absent.
Maverick: Mel Gibson takes over James Garner's TV roll as a card shark involved in a high-stakes poker game.
Mazes and Monsters: Adapted from Rona Jaffe's book of the same name. Tom Hanks stars as a college student who failed his save vs. sanity. Role playing enthusiasts take their game into nearby catacombs, but one of them loses his grip on reality. Obviously, some suspension of disbelief is required. Only one of them is a social misfit? Puh-leeze.
Midnight Madness: Five teams of college students race around Los Angeles in an elaborate all-night road rally / puzzle hunt. Check your disbelief at the door for this cheese-fest, Michael J. Fox's film debut.
Scavenger Hunt: Wealthy game inventor Vincent Price dies and— wouldn't you know it?— the rascal's will forces his potential heirs to compete in an all-or-nothing scavenger hunt. It's the battle of the C-List stars as the hopefuls split into five teams to grab the goods.
Searching for Bobby Fischer: Joe Mantegna, initially disappointed at his son's lack of interest in sports, encourages his talent for chess. As the boy begins tournament play we see the impact competition has on his psyche and his love of the game. An excellent study of the pressures of being a prodigy. Though the film revolves around chess, its observations vis-a-vis enjoyment vs. victory apply to a broad range of games and pursuits. Based on a true story. Factoid: Max Pomeranc, who plays the boy, is an actual chess prodigy. Another must-see.
The Seventh Seal: Bergman classic in which a knight plays chess with Death. Parodied in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.
Tag: The Assassination Game: College students (hmm... do I sense a trend here?) play a game in which they stalk each other with toy dart guns. But this year, someone's using real bullets. A movie only a gamer could love, much less sit through. And I admit it, I played a version of this in high school (booby traps in lockers, rubber bands in the hallway, etc).
WarGames: Is there anyone who hasn't seen this? Matthew Broderick almost starts global thermonuclear war— until Tic Tac Toe saves the world.