Poster © PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
|
GenreDrama, Mystery & Thriller
RatedR
Runtime2 hr 9 mins
ReleasedSeptember 12, 1997
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorDavid Fincher
StarringMichael Douglas, Sean Penn, James Rebhorn
|
The Game (1997)
| ▶Stream It | ★The Numbers |
| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| The Game's Details | |
| Genre | Drama, Mystery & Thriller |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 09/12/1997 |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 9 mins |
| Budget | $70M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| The Game's Interests | |
| General | Clown dolls, mystery keys, tailored suits, rich guy loneliness, a TV news anchor who talks back. |
| Music | Howard Shore. Moody piano for a moody millionaire. |
| Movies | Se7en (1995). Fincher's movie right before this one, and way darker. |
| Television | Severance. Mysterious company, strange tests, nobody tells you anything. |
| Heroes | Ilsa, the housekeeper. The one person who actually likes Nicholas. |
| The Game's Crew | |
| Director | David Fincher |
| Writers | John Brancato, Michael Ferris |
| Producers | Steve Golin, Ceán Chaffin |
| Cinematography | Harris Savides |
| Music | Howard Shore |
| Edited By | James Haygood |
| Production | Propaganda Films |
| Distributed By | PolyGram Filmed Entertainment |
A life-size clown doll shows up on Michael Douglas’s driveway, and that’s roughly the moment The Game stops being a thriller and starts being a dare. Douglas plays Nicholas, a rich man so cold he tips with disappointment, and watching his perfect life get poked apart one weird stunt at a time is a blast. Sean Penn pops in as the messy little brother. Deborah Kara Unger keeps you guessing about whose side she’s on. David Fincher shoots San Francisco like everyone in it is in on something. The problem is the ending. I won’t spoil it, but it asks you to believe in a level of planning that would make a wedding coordinator cry. Every rewatch, I flip between genius and nonsense. Audiences shrugged a little too: $109.4 million worldwide on a reported $70 million budget. A 7.3 because the ride is great and the landing is a coin toss. $13.66 says you get a strange gift card this year and read the fine print twice.
What works: Michael Douglas makes a cold rich guy fun to watch fall apart, and Fincher keeps San Francisco feeling like a trap.
What doesn’t: The ending requires a ridiculous amount of planning and luck to work, and it can feel like a cheat the second time through.
Who it’s for: Fans of puzzle thrillers who like being lied to, and anyone who has ever suspected their family of plotting something.
Spoilers
The whole thing was the game, set up by Conrad and the company from day one, including the disasters, the betrayal and the gun. Even the final fall from the rooftop is staged: Nicholas lands on a giant air cushion and drops into his own birthday party, where Conrad is waiting, very much alive.
Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a very rich, very lonely investment banker in San Francisco. For his forty-eighth birthday, his younger brother Conrad (Sean Penn) hands him an odd gift: a card for a company called Consumer Recreation Services, which promises a game built just for him. Nicholas sits through a long day of tests and gets told he did not make the cut. Then small strange things start happening, a waitress named Christine (Deborah Kara Unger) crosses his path, and his life starts to run on rules nobody explained. David Fincher directs. One hundred twenty-eight minutes, trust nobody.
Anyone who reads the fine print. All of it, twice.
Nicholas "Nick / Nicky" Van Ortonphoto: User:Janbery, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
| Michael Douglas | Nicholas "Nick / Nicky" Van Orton |
| Sean Penn | Conrad "Connie" Van Orton |
| Deborah Kara Unger | Christine / Claire |
| James Rebhorn | Jim Feingold |
| Peter Donat | Samuel Sutherland |
| Carroll Baker | Ilsa |
| Armin Mueller-Stahl | Anson Baer |
| Anna Katarina | Elizabeth |
| Charles Martinet | Nicholas's father |
| Mark Boone Junior | Shady Private Investigator |
| Tommy Flanagan | Solicitor/Taxi Driver |
| Spike Jonze | Airbag EMT Beltran |
| Michael Massee | Airbag EMT Galliano |
| Linda Manz | Amy |
| Daniel Schorr | himself |
| John Aprea | Power Executive |
| Jack Kehoe | Lieutenant Sullivan |
| Harrison Young | Obsequious Executive |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +480 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $109.4M; Domestic box office $48.3M; Opening weekend $14.3M; Profit / loss (est.) -$50.3M; Rotten Tomatoes 77%; CinemaScore B−; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 77% (64 reviews); Metacritic 63 / 100; CinemaScore B−; IMDb users 7.7 / 10 (479,021 votes); movie.guru score 6.5.
- (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.