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).
One of those rare sequels (well, prequels) that is vastly superior to the original film, 2016's Origin of Evil is a 1960s-set story about the Zander family that plays a key role in the 2014 film Ouija. Directed by Mike Flanagan (prior to his becoming a horror series specialist for Netflix with titles like The Haunting of Hill House and The Midnight Club), Origin of Evil stars Elizabeth Reaser, Henry Thomas, and Lulu Wilson. Though it received positive reviews from critics—and scored a whopping 27 points higher than the prior film—the prequel actually performed worse at the box office, likely ending the franchise (for now).
“Origin of Evil doesn’t stretch the conventions of teen-appeal spookiness too far, but is solidly put together, mounted with a pleasant conviction and runs to several fine performances and some decent scares.” —Kim Newman, Screen Daily
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