It’s the future in Ready Player One, and everyone has fled the trashed, dystopic Earth for a shared virtual fantasia called OASIS, where the past’s pop culture becomes the present’s pleasures. In tribute to Steven Spielberg’s tribute to movies, games, anime, and himself, this week’s gallery takes 24 virtual worlds and ranks them all by Tomatometer.
The Matrix (1999, 87%)
Turns out life as we know it is just a computer simulation, while we’re connected to energy harvesting pods in the real world. Whoa.
Inception (2010, 86%)
Welcome to the virtual world of your dreams…literally! Where Hans Zimmer plays over the PA around the clock, with brilliant ideas awaiting around ever corner to germinate within your brain. Say, why hasn’t anyone made banana enchilada perfume yet?
Source Code (2011, 91%)
Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up over and over in an 8-minute simulated train ride to find the location of a bomb primed to explode.
Total Recall (1990, 82%)
The bad guys want you to believe that Arnold Schwarzenegger is trapped in a half-formed memory after getting strapped to a high-tech implant machine.
Avalon (2001, 80%)
In the dystopic future, citizens are addicted to an exciting battle royale simulator that has the potential to kill you in real life.
Summer Wars (2010, 77%)
OZ, an online virtual world with hundreds of millions of users and integration into modern infrastructure like traffic lights or heart monitors, threatens the world when a rogue AI virus starts eating up everyone’s accounts and avatars.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2016, 76%)
Four nerdy school pals get a digital makeover when they’re thrown in the world of Jumanji, the cursed artifact that has taken on the form of a video game.
The Matrix Reloaded (2003, 73%)
Know what they call a glitch in the Matrix? Deja vu.
ExistenZ (1999, 72%)
Users volunteer to try out a new shared VR game called Existenz which mimics real life. But when you wake up after a session, how do you know you’re really out of the game?
TRON (1982, 70%)
Now approach the Grid, where programs appear in human form and engage in bouts of neon tomfoolery to the entertainment of the copmuter masses.
Strange Days (1995, 63%)
Strange Days depicted POV VR sex videos as a hot 1999 commodity, In real life, we had to go well into the 2010s for that to be true. The future is now…just only after a slight delay.
Brainstorm (1983, 63%)
People are able to experience another’s memories and emotions using pre-recorded tapes that hold the real things.
Disclosure (1994, 59%)
Nestled in this office space thriller is a VR headspace that allows users to access company files and documents.
TRON: Legacy (2010, 51%)
Welcome back to the Grid, where things have only gotten worse since the last visit, with programs conspiring to leap from the mainframe and into our reality to turn our world into a pristine digital landscape devoid of life.
The Cell (2000, 46%)
To catch a killer, Jennifer Lopez must enter the mind of a killer, using virtual reality and stepping into a surreal, hellish mindscape.
Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003, 45%)
Sylvester Stallone enters Robert Rodriguez’s unlikely franchise as The Toymaker, who uses a VR video game to plan his escape from cyberspace jail.
The Matrix Revolutions (2003, 36%)
Know what they call a glitch in the Matrix? Deja vu.
The Lawnmower Man (1992, 35%)
Pierce Brosnan, in a grand leap of logic, sets out to prove he can turn his dimwitted neighbor into a certifiable genius using his VR games and applications.
Virtuosity (1995, 33%)
Russell Crowe leapt into the American film market as a digital composite of serial killers who leaps from his virtual reality and into our own, with Denzel Washington chasing after him.
The Thirteenth Floor (1999, 29%)
New VR technology developed in the 1990s lets users enter different eras in history, though who’s to say that the ’90s they’re jumping in from is real itself?
Gamer (2009, 27%)
Convicts play for their lives in a digital battle arena, while being controlled by a user elsewhere off the map.
Brainscan (1994, 17%)
Is it hypnosis? Is it a game? Or is Edward Furlong killing for real? He plays a horror and video game nut who jumps at the chance to try out some new interactive entertainment, only to discover the in-game murders have real life consequences, which will never be the same.
Johnny Mnemonic (1995, 13%)
The internet is represented as a real mental headspace you can fly through in this cyberpunk thriller.
Stay Alive (2006, 9%)
Another video game players find themselves trapped within, and if they die inside, they die outside the game as well.
