However, there is a certain magic in the genre of "death games" - it knows how to grab you and doesn't let go in the process. So if you still feel this irresistible urge to watch people in extreme situations (how this characterizes us as viewers is a topic for a separate discussion), we have prepared a selection of Battle Royale films for you. And a couple of series to boot.
It's worth noting that you shouldn't look for cinematic masterpieces among them. Most of them have received mixed reviews from critics and IMDB scores close to six. Nevertheless, they are quite capable of fulfilling their therapeutic function.
Release date: 2000
Genre: action, thriller, drama, sci-fi
Director: Kinji Fukasaku
IMDb: 7,5/10
Actually, Battle Royale... Although this is not the first film of this genre, it was Battle Royale that gave the name to this phenomenon in cinema and video games. It also demonstrated how to successfully combine sharp social criticism with a spectacular bloody action movie. Although the script is quite straightforward and simple.
Battle Royale, directed by Kinji Fukasaku, immerses us in a dystopian totalitarian country, of which Japan is a part. The action takes place in the near future. There's an economic crisis, adult unemployment, and teenagers running amok. A wise government comes up with a super logical solution: make high school students shoot each other for the sake of education. After all, what could be more pedagogical than 42 students fighting to the last man standing?
By the way, the film is based on the novel of the same name by Japanese writer Koushun Takami. The novel was published just a year before the film adaptation, in 1999, and became a real sensation in Japan.
Release date: 2016
Genre: action, thriller, dark comedy
Director: Greg McLean
IMDb: 6,/10
While Battle Royale was about teenage violence, The Office Experiment strikes at the heart of corporate culture. But it is not about "synergy," "proactivity," and "teamwork," but about pure Darwinism among office plankton.
Imagine a normal working morning in the office: coffee, gossiping by the water cooler, trying to remember the password to your work computer... And then suddenly a voice over the speakers announces that your 80 colleagues need to kill each other. Director Greg McLean creates an eerie picture: it turns out that all you have to do to turn office workers into murderers is to block the elevators and turn off the air conditioning. And now yesterday's "team players" are demonstrating skills that are not exactly listed on their resumes. The film harshly (and sometimes literally) dissects the corporate hierarchy, showing how quickly a thin layer of civility collapses when lives are at stake.
Release date: 2007
Genre: action, drama, crime
Director: Scott Viper
IMDb: 6,0/10
Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) is awaiting his death sentence in a corrupt Central American prison. It seems to be the end of the story. But a wealthy TV producer comes up with a brilliant idea: why not buy a dozen suicide bombers from around the world and stage a bloody reality show with them on a deserted island?
And now Konrad, along with nine other "lucky ones," finds himself in this reality show where the rules are simpler than a multiplication table: kill everyone and get free. What could be fairer?
But there is one nuance that the show's organizers did not know about: Jack Conrad is not just any ordinary criminal. He is a fighter of the elite Delta unit who was captured during a mission. And now, instead of a submissive victim, a professional warrior is in the arena. So there are a lot of fights here.
Release date: 2007
Genre: action, horror, thriller, sci-fi, black comedy
Director: Takashi Miike
IMDb: 6,3/10
In the world of Japanese dystopias, high school students are often unlucky. This time, the characters in Takashi Miike's film are forced to play traditional children's games where losing means instant death.
Shun Takahata lives an ordinary life as a schoolboy, until one day he finds himself playing a deadly game with his classmates. If you win a children's game, you live, if you lose, you die. And all of this is run by a mysterious organizer who has obviously re-read Battle Royale.
The film teeters on the edge of black comedy and bloody thriller. In the first half, the film keeps you in suspense, and delights fans of the genre with vivid scenes of violence and unexpectedly funny moments. The black humor here is quite apt, and sometimes you can laugh even in the most tense moments - a rare achievement for a film of this genre.
Unfortunately, it was not without its flaws. The antagonist looks a bit artificial, and the ending... Well, let's just say it leaves a lot of questions and plot holes.
Release date: 2012
Genre: dystopia, action, sci-fi, adventure
Director: Gary Ross
IMDb: 7,2/10
Frankly speaking, I've never understood why this movie and its sequels cause so much negativity among dystopian fans. In my opinion, it quite adequately conveyed the main ideas of the original novel, and the novel itself shows the problems of "life as a show" when it becomes state policy, class inequality, media manipulation, and moral dilemmas of survival in a form accessible to very young readers.
So, in the totalitarian state of Panem, there are twelve poverty-stricken districts and a luxurious capital for the cream of society. Every year, it hosts the Hunger Games, a bloody reality show where teenagers from each district are forced to fight to the death. Part entertainment, part punishment for a long-standing rebellion.
When 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to take her younger sister Prim's place in a deadly lottery, she realizes that she has little chance of survival.
The film perfectly shows the contrast between the poverty-stricken districts and the grotesquely bright capital, where the inhabitants are so detached from reality that they perceive the deaths of innocent people as entertainment.
It's ironic that a movie about a deadly reality show has become a media sensation itself, grossing nearly $700 million at the box office and spawning several sequels. Fortunately, without any real victims.
Release date: 2005
Genre: thriller, drama, horror
Director: Stephen Monroe
IMDb: 5,3/10
In this dark variation on Battle Royale, nine strangers find themselves in a locked house with simple rules: only one can survive, and the winner will receive $5 million. The participants include a priest (Dennis Hopper), a dancer, a designer, a rap artist, a tennis player, an ex-convict, a failed composer and his wife, and a detective.
The mysterious Observer announces through loudspeakers that they are being watched by 75 cameras, and the only one who survives will be rewarded for his silence. Then a psychological game begins, where fear and greed gradually take over common sense.
Release date: 2015
Genre: drama, horror, thriller, sci-fi
Director: Aaron Hahn, Mario Missione
IMDb: 6,0/10
But this movie makes you look at democracy in general and the voting process in particular a little differently.
In a mysterious round room, five strangers wake up standing on red dots. They don't remember how they got here. The rules are as simple as ever: every two minutes, one of them must die from an electric shock. But there's a caveat - the group can vote on who will die next.
What begins as random deaths quickly turns into a brutal social experiment. Participants realize that they have power over the killing machine through voting. And here the most interesting part begins: how do people choose who deserves to die? What are the criteria? What is more important - age, gender, race, social status?
The film explores group psychology and shows how quickly "civilized" people revert to primitive instincts. Particularly ironic are the typically American assumptions of the participants about the world, such as that 90% of people believe in God.
Release date: 2009
Genre: action, dark comedy, drama, thriller
Director: Scott Mann
IMDb: 6,0/10
Every seven years, a mysterious "Tournament" takes place in a random city - a deadly competition between the world's 30 best hired killers. The last man standing receives $10 million and the title of "Number 1," a status that pays a million dollars a shot in the world of assassins.
The film stars Ving Rhames, Robert Carlyle, and Ian Somerhalder. Unlike most other films about deadly games, it is not random innocent victims who compete here, but professional killers who have chosen this fate. An ordinary city is transformed into an arena where every corner can become the site of the last battle.
The film doesn't even try to be a deep drama - it's a thoroughbred action movie with all the classic elements of the genre: guns, explosions and stunning stunts.
Release date: 2019
Genre: action, black comedy, drama, crime
Director: Jason Lay Howden
IMDb: 6,3/10
Here we have a comedy rather than a typical Battle Royal, where sometimes everything is too serious.
Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) is completely bored with his programming routine, misses his ex-girlfriend, and spends his free time trolling people online under the guise of anonymity. He likes to leave "righteous" comments under questionable content, considering himself a fighter for justice.
But that all changes when he comes under the radar of Skizm, a cyber group that broadcasts deadly fights between criminals to millions of online viewers. The same broadcasts that Miles loved to criticize from a safe distance.
Now he has to fight a crazed escapee from a mental institution with only two huge guns literally bolted to his hands. At first, his habit of running away from his problems helps him survive, but when the life of his not-yet-forgotten ex is threatened, Miles will have to finally stop running and face his fears.
Release date: 2020
Genre: action, slasher, drama, crime
Director: Craig Zobel
IMDb: 6,6/10
Twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don't know where they are or how they got here. And they do not know that they were chosen for a special purpose - to become prey in a hunt for the entertainment of the elite.
Unlike the classic "battle of the pianos," where participants are forced to fight each other, here the victims unite against a common enemy - a group of wealthy liberals who decided to "hunt down the rednecks."
The film turns the typical clichés of the genre upside down: the protagonist Crystal is not just trying to survive, she turns the hunters into the hunted. She is not at all like a typical "final girl" from a horror movie: she can easily urinate in front of people and tells perverted versions of children's fairy tales.
The Hunt is also a harsh satire of American politics. The director Craig Zobel spares no one: both the "disgusting" Democrats and the "stupid" Republicans get their due.
Release date: 1987
Genre: action, fiction
Director: Paul Michael Glaser
IMDb: 6,6/10
And now let's turn to a very classic classic. The Running Man was one of the first in the "death games" genre and influenced many later works, from "Battle Royale" to "The Hunger Games." In 2017 (eh, where are you now!), television controls the masses with violent reality shows. The most popular of these is "Running Man," where convicted criminals have to run away from professional "hunters" on live TV.
Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Ben Richards, a police officer who is falsely accused of mass murder and sent to the show. But instead of becoming another victim of ratings, Richards decides to hack the system from within.
A film based on the novel by Stephen King (under the pseudonym Richard Bachman). Unlike more recent films of the "deadly games" genre, the protagonist here is not an accidental victim, but a professional military man who turns entertainment into a revolution. And the show's host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson), is not just an antagonist, but the personification of cynical media.
Release date: 2018
Genre: action, fiction
Director: Yan Han
IMDb: 6,6/10
The protagonist of Animal World, Zheng Kaiji, is a typical loser with millions in debt who gets a chance to fix everything on the mysterious ship Destiny. The rules of the game: there are cards with the "rock-paper-scissors" symbols and the need to take the opponent's star. But when lives are at stake, even the simplest game turns into a complex chess game.
In this movie, there is no coercion to participate - the characters choose to play the game for the sake of financial salvation. And instead of destroying all the opponents, it is enough to simply fulfill the terms of the contract. This makes the movie closer to The Squid Game than to Battle Royale.
The movie is an adaptation of the Japanese manga Kaiji, but the Chinese filmmakers added their own aesthetics, such as bright surreal scenes with clowns. But fans of the original note that the movie lacked the iconic "zawa zawa" and moments of extreme despair of the protagonist, which in the manga were the source of his most brilliant ideas.
And now let's recall a couple of series in which people are involved in too serious battles.
Release date: 2020–
Genre: action, thriller
Director: Shinsuke Sato
IMDb: 7,7/10
Three misfit friends are hiding from the police in a toilet at Shibuya Station. When they come out, they find themselves in an empty Tokyo, where they have to participate in deadly games to survive. If you refuse, you die immediately. If you agree, you may live a little longer.
There is no single arena or set of rules. The games are constantly changing, and their complexity is indicated by cards, like in poker. The worst ones are the ones with hearts, where participants are forced to play against their own friends. And the winners get extra days of life, as if in some kind of perverse video game.
Director Shinsuke Sato, known for his manga adaptations, has created an amazing mix of Saw, Lord of the Flies, and Battle Royale. And like the original Battle Royale, it is better not to get attached to the characters here - the mortality rate is not lower than in Game of Thrones.
One of the most striking things about the series is the completely empty Tokyo. The authors somehow managed to show even the legendary Shibuya crossroads, one of the most crowded places in the world, as empty. Although CGI was used, it looks amazing.
Netflix has already renewed the series for a third season, which is not surprising, as it is perhaps the best live-action manga adaptation to date.
Release date: 2016–2020
Genre: action, thriller, dystopia
Author: Pedro Aguilera
IMDb: 7,3/10
"3%" is a Brazilian series about a society divided into two worlds: the impoverished Inland and the prosperous Offshore. Young slum dwellers are given their only chance in life - to go through a mysterious "Process" that allows only three out of a hundred participants to enter a better world.
This is not quite a classic "deathmatch". There is no direct violence or battles between the participants, but there are psychological tests, moral dilemmas, and the constant pressure of realizing that 97% of competitors are doomed to return to poverty.
The series was Netflix's first Portuguese-language project and offered a fresh take on the genre. Instead of spectacular deaths, it is a subtle play with human psychology and the question of the price we are willing to pay for a "better life."
Despite the modest budget, the filmmakers managed to create a convincing world of the future where social inequality has become almost ritualistic. The actors, many of whom are beginners, make us believe in the reality of this gloomy world.
All four seasons are already available on Netflix.
Of course, there are many more Battle Royale movies and series that we haven't mentioned. Add your favorite ones in the comments.