Movies Based on Toys and Games, Ranked Worst to Best
Greta Gerwig's new Barbie film may be getting all of the attention this month, but it's far from the first film to attempt to bring a children's toy line to the big screen. While some of those adaptations have been dismissed as nothing more than feature-length toy commercials, others have been successful in spite of their origins. In the gallery on this page, we rank over three dozen such films from worst to best according to their Metascores, which represent the consensus views of leading professional film critics.
All of the films are based on pre-existing toys—including tabletop games and trading cards—though we have omitted any films for franchises that were already well established as television shows (or comics) prior to becoming toys. In addition, we have also excluded any films with fewer than four reviews from critics (our minimum required for calculating a Metascore)—a group that mainly includes direct-to-video features (including, by the way, most of the previous Barbie movies).
The American Girl doll line—featuring young girls from various periods in American history—launched in 1986 and grew into a mini-empire spanning retail stores, books, a magazine, and a film series. Only one of those films was released in theaters, and the G-rated 2008 drama received solid reviews from critics though it performed modestly at the box office with just over $17 million in receipts. Kit Kittredge: An American Girl stars Abigail Breslin as the title character, who is based on American Girl's Great Depression-era character, a 10-year-old Cincinnati resident whose story was first fleshed out in a book series by Valerie Tripp. The surprisingly strong surrounding cast also features Stanley Tucci, Jane Krakowski, Julia Ormond, Chris O'Donnell, Joan Cusack, and Wallace Shawn.
“A thoroughly satisfying and engaging children's picture that never forgets those kids probably didn't get to the theater by themselves.” —Rene Rodriguez, The Miami Herald
| Stream On |
|
| Buy on |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|