The Game (1997)

The Game rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic

IMDb7.7/10· 466K votes

Rotten Tomatoes77%

Metacritic63%

TMDb7.572/10· 7K votes

With 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 7.7/10 on IMDb and 63/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been positive.

About The Game

In honor of his birthday, San Francisco banker Nicholas Van Orton, a financial genius and a cold-hearted loner, receives an unusual present from his younger brother, Conrad: a gift certificate to play a unique kind of game. In nary a nanosecond, Nicholas finds himself consumed by a dangerous set of ever-changing rules, unable to distinguish where the charade ends and reality begins.

Cast of The Game

• 

  Michael Douglas

  as Nicholas Van Orton

• 

  Sean Penn

  as Conrad Van Orton

• 

  Deborah Kara Unger

  as Christine

• 

  James Rebhorn

  as Jim Feingold

• 

  Peter Donat

  as Samuel Sutherland

• 

  Carroll Baker

  as Ilsa

• 

  Anna Katarina

  as Elizabeth

• 

  Armin Mueller-Stahl

  as Anson Baer

• 

  Charles Martinet

  as Nicholas' Father

• 

  Scott Hunter McGuire

  as Young Nicholas

• 

  Florentine Mocanu

  as Nicholas' Mother

• 

  Elizabeth Dennehy

  as Maria

The Game facts

Budget

$50M

Box office

$109.4M

Our take on The Game

David Fincher's 1997 thriller wraps a chilly character study inside a mystery box. Nicholas Van Orton, a wealthy, emotionally frozen San Francisco banker, receives an unusual birthday gift from his brother: entry into a mysterious game whose ever-shifting rules soon leave him unable to tell staged illusion from genuine danger. Fincher builds paranoia methodically, keeping the audience as disoriented as its protagonist while the story questions how much control a controlling man really has. It suits viewers who enjoy puzzle-box plotting, unreliable ground beneath their feet and endings that ask to be reconsidered. Come for the twists, stay for the precise, unsettling craft rather than easy reassurance.