Poster © Warner Bros. Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreAction, Adventure & Sci-Fi
RatedPG-13
Runtime2 hr 20 mins
ReleasedMarch 29, 2018
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorSteven Spielberg
StarringTye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn
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Ready Player One (2018)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Ready Player One's Details | |
| Genre | Action, Adventure & Sci-Fi |
| Rated | PG-13 |
| Released | 03/11/2018 (SXSW); 03/29/2018 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 20 mins |
| Budget | $155–175M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Based On | Ready Player One by Ernest Cline |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Ready Player One's Interests | |
| General | VR headsets, the Stacks, Easter eggs, 80s movie trivia, a DeLorean, a street race with King Kong. |
| Music | Alan Silvestri. Plus a jukebox of 80s hits, starting with Van Halen's 'Jump'. |
| Movies | Tron (1982). Getting sucked into a video game, the original. |
| Television | Sword Art Online. Trapped inside a VR game, anime style. |
| Heroes | Aech. The best friend who can build anything in the garage. |
| Ready Player One's Crew | |
| Director | Steven Spielberg |
| Writers | Zak Penn, Ernest Cline |
| Producers | Donald De Line, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Steven Spielberg, Dan Farah |
| Cinematography | Janusz Kamiński |
| Music | Alan Silvestri |
| Edited By | Michael Kahn, Sarah Broshar |
| Production | Warner Bros. Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Village Roadshow Pictures, RatPac-Dune Entertainment, De Line Pictures |
| Distributed By | Warner Bros. Pictures |
What’s left of a movie once you’ve spotted every reference? Not a lot, it turns out. Tye Sheridan’s Wade is a nice kid with the personality of a loading screen, and the plot is a treasure hunt against corporate villains led by Ben Mendelsohn, doing his best with a guy who keeps his password on a sticky note. Spielberg still knows how to stage chaos. The opening race through a city with King Kong and a T. rex on the track is legit nuts, and one detour into a famous old horror movie is the most fun the whole thing has. Mark Rylance brings a real sadness to the shy genius who built the OASIS. Then it’s back to logos punching logos for 140 minutes. It made $607.9 million worldwide on a reported $155 to $175 million, so the nostalgia machine works. A 5.2 because it’s a great theme park and a thin movie. $3,738 says you pause it at least once to prove to someone you spotted the Iron Giant first.
What works: Spielberg’s big set pieces, especially the opening race and one inspired trip into a classic horror film.
What doesn’t: Wade and most of the gang are blank slates, so once the references stop landing there’s nobody to care about.
Who it’s for: Gamers and pop culture fans who enjoy freeze-framing a movie to hunt for cameos.
Spoilers
Wade finds Halliday’s final Easter egg hidden in an old Atari game and wins control of the OASIS. He shares it with his friends, Sorrento gets arrested, and they close the OASIS on Tuesdays and Thursdays so people spend time in the real world.
Columbus, Ohio, 2045. Real life means cramped trailers stacked into towers, so everyone escapes into the OASIS, a giant virtual world. When its creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) dies, he leaves a game behind: find three hidden keys, win his fortune and control of the OASIS. Teenage gamer Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who plays as Parzival, wants in. So does Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), a legendary player, and so does Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), a corporate boss with an army of hired gamers. The first challenge is a car race nobody can finish. Steven Spielberg directs. One hundred forty minutes, infinite references.
Anyone with a headset and way too much 80s trivia. Player two, step up.
the voice and motion-capture of i-R0kphoto: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
James Halliday / Anorak the All-Knowingphoto: Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| Tye Sheridan | Wade Watts / Parzival |
| Olivia Cooke | Samantha Cook / Art3mis |
| Ben Mendelsohn | Nolan Sorrento / IOI-655321 |
| Lena Waithe | Helen Harris / Aech |
| T.J. Miller | the voice and motion-capture of i-R0k |
| Simon Pegg | Ogden "Og" Morrow / The Curator |
| Mark Rylance | James Halliday / Anorak the All-Knowing |
| Philip Zhao | Zhou / Sho |
| Win Morisaki | Toshiro Yoshiaki / Daito |
| Hannah John-Kamen | F'Nale Zandor |
| Susan Lynch | Alice |
| Ralph Ineson | Rick |
| Perdita Weeks | Karen "Kira" Underwood |
| Turlough Convery | IOI's chief oology expert |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +520 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $607.9M; Domestic box office $137.7M; Opening weekend $41.8M; Profit / loss (est.) +$56.4M; Rotten Tomatoes 71%; CinemaScore A−; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 71% (443 reviews); Metacritic 64 / 100; PostTrak audience 82% positive; CinemaScore A−; IMDb users 7.4 / 10 (553,307 votes); movie.guru score 6.8.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.