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 third feature made by Pixar Animation Studios was a sequel to its first, released just four years prior. Again directed by then-Pixar head John Lasseter, 1999's Toy Story 2 returned most of the cast and characters from the first film and overcame early production problems to again impress critics and make even more money than the already successful first film. And though Toy Story 2 scored slightly lower than Toy Story, more than a few critics felt that the sequel was the superior film—especially given the advances in computer animation technology.
“Just as good as the original. In fact, it might even be better. Not only is it just as visually stunning and witty as the first, but it's funnier, more thoughtful and more grown-up.” —Janelle Brown, Salon
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