The Running Man (2025)
Directed by Edgar Wright
Desperate to save his sick daughter, working-class Ben Richards is convinced by The Running Man's charming but ruthless producer to enter the deadly competition game as a last resort. But Ben's defiance, instincts, and grit turn him into an unexpected fan favorite — and a threat to the entire system. As ratings skyrocket, so does the danger, and Ben must outwit not just the Hunters, but a nation addicted to watching him fall.
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129 films that influenced The Running Man
What critics say influenced The Running Man
…reminiscent not so much of a Winkleman as a Flickerman – Stanley Tucci's Caesar Flickerman in The Hunger Games films.
That was of course the point behind King’s idea – even if in the years since, through The Hunger Games, Squid Game and others, it became something of a stock premise for satirical science-fiction films and shows.
…this version invites comparisons to The Hunger Games and especially Black Mirror.
…but we're in a post-Hunger Games world…
After The Hunger Games, Black Mirror, Squid Game, and decades more of media-saturation parables, the idea that we’re addicted to spectacle isn’t exactly a revelation.
Though it came first, “The Running Man” owes a lot to “The Hunger Games” franchise in the way that the Network exec Killian and “Speed the Wheel” host (Sean Hayes, love) are styled like variations of Caesar Flickerman without the warmth of Stanley Tucci.
He even gets his own Home Alone style kills!
Michael Cera brings a grounded sincerity as a zine-making rebel before leaning into Wright's indulgences for a Home Alone-like zaniness…
…outside of a delightful sequence in which Daniels and Michael Cera’s Elton unleash a series of Home Alone-style traps on invading cops…
An example is a cartoonishly violent house invasion including Michael Cera with a Home-Alone style series of booby traps…
Michael Cera pops up just long enough to cosplay “Home Alone” for the Kristi Noem era…
Michael Cera gets a deliriously unhinged Home Alone-style sequence that injects manic comedy into the dread…
It’s a place to have fun in a Blade Runner-lite playground with a lead actor who’s more than capable of delivering Wright’s smartass dialogue in a way that endears himself to the audience.
…could have birthed a formulaic Blade Runner rip-off…
Chung-hoon Chung’s cinematography feels futuristic yet still down-to-earth, without relying too heavily on the bright neon lights and high-contrast visuals one often associates with Blade Runner.
It’s the basic logline for hundreds of sci-fi dystopias, from Blade Runner to Wall-E.
Go beyond this year, and it is impossible not to think of The Hunger Games, Robocop, Brazil, Blade Runner, and Minority Report…
This isn’t Blade Runner’s neon gloom…
In this way, Wright does show his love of the 1987 film.
This take on The Running Man is far more faithful to its source material than the Arnold Schwarzenegger film…
In the ’87 version, Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger), a military captain framed for opening fire on unarmed protestors, draws the attention of Damon Killian (Richard Dawson), the host of The Running Man…
I was just a teenager when I saw The Running Man on the big screen in 1987…
“The Running Man” (2025) is the second adaptation of Stephen King’s novel that he wrote under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman, and director and cowriter Edgar Wright’s most recent film.
“The Running Man” was first adapted to the big screen as a gloriously campy cult classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger that was predictive in its own way…
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…cynically grim streaming hits like Netflix's Squid Game…
JR.: Yes, yes. Squid Game, The Challenge, yes.
…it may be relevant today after the 21st century rise of the reality completion shows, from “Survivor” to “Squid Game”…
After The Hunger Games, Black Mirror, Squid Game, and decades more of media-saturation parables, the idea that we’re addicted to spectacle isn’t exactly a revelation.
It’s not hard to understand why these early King books – written under his old pseudonym Richard Bachman – would seem attractive to producers after “The Hunger Games” and “Squid Game” made bazillions of dollars.
Not to mention “Battle Royale” and “Squid Game.”
Through no fault of its own, The Running Man happens to be released mere months after another Stephen King adaptation that centers on a physical trial built by a dictator-like overlord that masquerades as a way to escape poverty when it’s merely reality tv fodder for the rich. The Long Walk was released in September and is a far grimmer exploration of the ways people in power want to keep those in poverty fighting amongst themselves rather than recognizing the real enemy.
Sure, walking is lower-impact than running, but The Long Walk is just as thematically impactful as The Running Man in its exploration of extremely similar ideas.
That’s an issue, albeit on a case-by-case basis (The Long Walk is excellent), with adapting old(er) IP with then-topical or urgent themes.
That also ensures it’s never as bleak as the recent film version of King’s thematically similar The Long Walk…
2025 has been the year of Stephen King adaptations with The Monkey, The Life of Chuck, and The Long Walk.
This cinematic year has given audiences The Life of Chuck, The Monkey, and The Long Walk, each one offering a different philosophy through diverging genres (drama, dark comedy, thriller), and Wright’s The Running Man is a hybrid of them all…
I think the film is getting at something not dissimilar to films this year like One Battle After Another, or even Superman.
…but like One Battle After Another or Andor, the heroes of 2025 are most certainly card-carrying revolutionaries…
…a neat companion to the recent One Battle After Another, with a revolutionary spirit coursing through its veins.
…even if it can feel like the safer, focus-grouped cousin of One Battle After Another.
…la siento más cercana a Una batalla tras otra (One Battle After Another, 2025), de Paul Thomas Anderson…
One Battle After Another was inarguably received as an accurate survey of the moment…
…one that channels the vicious satire of Network or the grim despair of Children of Men…
…pelea por colocarse a la altura de, por ejemplo, Network, un mundo implacable, que, al final, es de lo que se trata.
…a book that now looks like the missing link between “Network” and “The Hunger Games.”
…gags about the importance of ratings that Network’s Howard Beale would scoff at…
“Man 1” was preceded thematically by “Network” and “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”
…the film alludes also to classic small-screen satires such as Sidney Lumet’s Network…
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…a direct descendent of 1990s Paul Verhoeven (there are shades of Total Recall, in particular)…
…canaliza la explosividad y ambición creativa de Paul Verhoeven en “Total Recall”…
…the glory days of campy one-liner action flicks that left most of the meat of their source material off the screen (see also, Total Recall) in favor of a little extra flash and sizzle.
For fans of 80s action staples like Total Recall and RoboCop, The Running Man hits every target.
…as soulless as other actioner remakes like RoboCop and Total Recall…
Buried in an epic run of Schwarzenegger sci-fi classics like The Terminator, Predator, and Total Recall…
It’s not as daring as something like Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers but it is electrifyingly plugged in to the ills of a corrupt society that uses propaganda and spectacle to distract from pressing issues.
…apenas roza la superficie del modelo de Starship Troopers (1997), de Paul Verhoeven, obra que sí dialoga mejor con El sobreviviente…
Parts of it have the sting of those cheerfully grotesque TV ads, news reports, and propaganda clips in the original “The Running Man” and Paul Verhoeven’s “Robocop” and “Starship Troopers,” all of which were set in societies bereft of kindness and virtue.
If you watch Paul Verhoeven’s RoboCop and Starship Troopers, you’ll experience screenplays that effectively mix mockery and venom.
Wright pays homage to the maestros of subversive genre films – Paul Verhoeven, John Carpenter, Sam Raimi…