Best movies like The Running Man

2019. A game nobody survives. This year might be the exception.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Running Man Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Dawson, María Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, and more. If you liked The Running Man then you may also like: Warrior of the Lost World, The Way of War, Wedlock, Ravagers, Raven and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

By 2017, the global economy has collapsed and U.S. society has become a totalitarian police state, censoring all cultural activity. The government pacifies the populace by broadcasting a number of game shows in which convicted criminals fight for their lives, including the gladiator-style The Running Man, hosted by the ruthless Damon Killian, where “runners” attempt to evade “stalkers” and certain death for a chance to be pardoned and set free.

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Warrior of the Lost World

A nomad mercenary on a high-tech motorcycle helps bring about the downfall of the evil Orwellian government, the Omega.

The Way of War

Paramilitary operative David Wolfe stumbles upon an international conspiracy connecting presidential cabinet members to a Middle Eastern terrorist plot. Wanting to expose the truth, Wolfe defies orders and returns to the US as an army of one fighting for American security and integrity

Wedlock

A male prison escapee heads for his hidden loot, electronically attached to a female prisoner.

Ravagers

In a post-apocalyptic world divided between two groups called the Flockers and the Ravagers, an adventurer and his "pleasure girl" try to find their way to a rumored safe haven called the Land of Genesis.

Raven

Martin Grant has been hiding for years to escape his past as a ruthless mercenary in the elite force Raven Team. He's recently been engaged and are trying to forget the nightmares of murder and betrayal. Martin was convinced, that he could escape... But no one escapes from the Raven Teams ruthless leader Raven. At least not alive. Raven is back with a new team to hunt down and eliminate Grant...

Alex Cross

After Washington DC detective Alex Cross is told that a family member has been murdered, he vows to track down the killer. He soon discovers that she was not his first victim and that things are not what they seem.

Babylon A.D.

A veteran-turned-mercenary is hired to take a young woman with a secret from post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to New York City.

Brazil

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

The Chronicles of Riddick

After years of outrunning ruthless bounty hunters, escaped convict Riddick suddenly finds himself caught between opposing forces in a fight for the future of the human race. Now, waging incredible battles on fantastic and deadly worlds, this lone, reluctant hero will emerge as humanity's champion - and the last hope for a universe on the edge of annihilation.

The Condemned

Jack Conrad is awaiting the death penalty in a corrupt Central American prison. He is "purchased" by a wealthy television producer and taken to a desolate island where he must fight to the death against nine other condemned killers from all corners of the world, with freedom going to the sole survivor.

Total Recall

Construction worker Douglas Quaid's obsession with the planet Mars leads him to visit Recall, a company who manufacture memories. Something goes wrong during his memory implant turning Doug's life upside down and even to question what is reality and what isn't.

Demolition Man

Simon Phoenix, a violent criminal cryogenically frozen in 1996, escapes during a parole hearing in 2032 in the utopia of San Angeles. Police are incapable of dealing with his violent ways and turn to his captor, who had also been cryogenically frozen after being wrongfully accused of killing 30 innocent people while apprehending Phoenix.

Escape from New York

In the future, crime is out of control and New York City's Manhattan is a maximum security prison. Grabbing a bargaining chip right out of the air, convicts bring down the President's plane in bad old Gotham. Gruff Snake Plissken, a one-eyed lone warrior new to prison life, is coerced into bringing the President, and his cargo, out of this land of undesirables.

Total Recall

Factory worker Doug Quaid takes a virtual mind-trip vacation with the Rekall company, opting for implanted memories of being a spy. When the procedure goes wrong, Quaid becomes a wanted man by the police and joins forces with a rebel fighter to stop the evil Chancellor Cohaagen.

Death Race

Terminal Island, New York: 2020. Overcrowding in the US penal system has reached a breaking point. Prisons have been turned over to a monolithic Weyland Corporation, which sees jails full of thugs as an opportunity for televised sport. Adrenalized inmates, a global audience hungry for violence and a spectacular, enclosed arena come together to form the 'Death Race', the biggest, most brutal event.

Equilibrium

In a dystopian future, a totalitarian regime maintains peace by subduing the populace with a drug, and displays of emotion are punishable by death. A man in charge of enforcing the law rises to overthrow the system.

Escape from L.A.

This time, a cataclysmic temblor hits Los Angeles, turning it into an island. The president views the quake as a sign from above, expels Los Angeles from the country and makes it a penal colony for those found guilty of moral crimes. When his daughter, part of a resistance movement, steals the control unit for a doomsday weapon, Snake again gets tapped to save the day.

Hard Target

When a woman's father goes missing, she enlists a local to aid in her search. The pair soon discover that her father has died at the hands of a wealthy sportsman who hunts homeless men as a form of recreation.

Ghosts of Mars

In 2176, a Martian police unit is sent to pick up a highly dangerous criminal at a remote mining post. Upon arrival, the cops find the post deserted and something far more dangerous than any criminal — the original inhabitants of Mars, hellbent on getting their planet back.

Fortress

In the future, the inmates of a private underground prison are computer-controlled with cameras, dream readers, and devices that can cause pain or death. John and his illegally pregnant wife Karen are locked inside "The Fortress" but are determined to escape before the birth of their baby.

The Perfect Weapon

In a not too distant future, a totalitarian state run by ‘The Director” controls all aspects of life. All enemies of the state are dealt in the harshest way. Most of them are executed by the secret government’s assassins. The best operative is code-named “Condor” – an elite agent and hit man for the government. However, in his latest assignment, “Condor” fails to kill an opposition leader, and finds himself on the run from the very same government agency that he works for. This sets in motion a chain of events with unforseen consequences for all involved.

Assassination Games

Brazil is a contract killer, willing to take any job if the price is right. Flint left the assassin game when a ruthless drug dealer’s brutal attack left his wife in a coma. When a contract is put out on the same coldblooded drug dealer, both Brazil and Flint want him dead – one for the money, the other for revenge. With crooked Interpol agents and vicious members of the criminal underworld hot on their trail, these two assassins reluctantly join forces to quickly take out their target before they themselves are terminated.

Fortress 2

7 years on from the original Fortress movie, Brennick and his family are still on the run. Finally, they give in, and surrender, only to find themselves imprisoned in a new, more sophisticated fortress prison in outer space. But Brennick's not a man to give in easily, and with a 10 year old son waiting for him back on earth, he's going to pack some serious assault on the evil corporation.

Mean Guns

One hundred mid- and low-level gangsters who are on their boss' bad side are locked inside a newly-built high-security prison, and given plenty of guns, ammo, and baseball bats, then told that the last survivor will get a suitcase with 10 million dollars.

Death Race 2000

In a boorish future, the government sponsors a popular, but bloody, cross-country race in which points are scored by mowing down pedestrians. Five teams, each comprised of a male and female, compete using cars equipped with deadly weapons. Frankenstein, the mysterious returning champion, has become America's hero, but this time he has a passenger from the underground resistance.

Cyborg

A martial artist hunts a killer in a plague-infested urban dump of the future.

Daybreak

When a substantial portion of the nation's populace falls victim to a deadly plague, the tyrannical government quarantines them in camps, offering no alternative except death. But a gutsy rebel named Torch sets out to help the afflicted by leading an underground effort to spirit the victims to humane sanctuary.

Surrogates

Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

Ghost in the Shell 2.0

In the year 2029, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop a highly-wanted hacker known as 'The Puppetmaster'. Ghost in the Shell 2.0 is a reproduced version of its original 1995 counterpart. Among a numerous enhancements, for the film's 2.0 release, were a number of scenes were overhauled with 3D animation, visual improvements, and soundtrack rerecorded in 6.1 surround sound.

The Hunger Games

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. Part twisted entertainment, part government intimidation tactic, the Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. The world will be watching.

The Blood of Heroes

Set in a futuristic world where the only sport that has survived in a wasted society is the brutal game known as jugging. Sallow, the leader of a rag-tag team, has played in the main Leagues before, but was cast out because of indiscretions with a lady. However now joined by a talented newcomer, Kidda, an ambitious young peasant girl he and his team find they have one last chance for glory

Land of Doom

Earth has been ravaged by a nuclear war, and a feminist warrior is forced to join up with a soldier of fortune in her journey to find a rumored "paradise" as they battle gangs of rampaging bandits.

THX 1138

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

The Last Chase

Twenty years after the American people have been told the oil has run out and disease has scared them into complacency, the United States has become a fascist state. One man, former race car driver Franklyn Hart, now a puppet spokesman for public transportation, rebuilds his race car and sets off to California from Boston where people have returned to living life like they were twenty years prior.

Executive Target

His wife held hostage, a stunt driver is forced to drive a getaway car in a plot to kidnap the President from a motorcade.

Megaville

In the future, national boundaries have been broken down and two giant super-states remain—the bleak, oppressive, and totalitarian "Hemisphere," and the sprawling and futuristic "Megaville." Megaville has an elected president, but the entire system is rife with corruption. All forms of media are encouraged in Megaville, but this freedom has aided moral decay with the distribution of pornography and violent movies. Outside Megaville lies the Hemisphere; whereas Megaville is clean and ordered, the Hemisphere is in a state of decay. Travel from the Hemisphere to Megaville is restricted with few exceptions to the powerful. An outwardly totalitarian regime governs the daily life of civilians in the Hemisphere and the people live in fear of the "CKS" (the secret police). All forms of media are illegal in the Hemisphere. CC wikipedia.org

Terminal City Ricochet

Welcome to Terminal City, a decaying world where the citizens wallow amidst a mind-boggling profusion of discarded consumer goods; a ruthless world where television is exploited to its fullest to sell yet more needless junk to eager consumers; a bewildering land where the unreal is real and the real, unreal. Alex Stevens is hurled into this bedlam where he finds himself pitted against the maniacal Ross Gilmore, Mayor of Terminal City, and the evil Bruce Coddle, agent of Gilmore's Social Peace Enforcement Unit.

Appleseed Alpha

Based on the comic book by the creator of Ghost in the Shell, a young female soldier Deunan and her cyborg partner Briareos survive through the post World War 3 apocalyptic New York in search of human's future hope, the legendary city of Olympus.

Rumors of Wars

A suspenseful, genre-bending film with two converging storylines. An aspiring college journalist records events in a diary about the turmoil of a society due to the insertion of a RFID chip mandated by the government. ? Years later in the rubble of a post apocalyptic society filled with decay and violence, the diary finds its way into to the hands of an officer in the New World Army who uncovers the truth about the past and discovers everything he stood for was a lie. But what will he do now?

Death Collector

In a future time, when things have reverted back to the days of the Old West, a man goes after the gang that murdered his brother.

Brave New World

In a futuristic totalitarian utopian society, babies are created through genetic engineering, everyone has a predestined place in society and their minds are conditioned to follow the rules. A tragic outsider jeopardizes the status quo.

Walker, Texas Ranger: Trial by Fire

Walker investigates a murder connected with a missing government weapon. In addition, he tries to track down a teen on the run from a crime syndicate.

Redline

A prostitute helps a U.S. smuggler evade assassins and seek revenge upon his traitorous partner in Moscow.

Overkill

American Police officer Jack Hazard heads for South America after being ordered to take time off by his boss after a raid goes bad. Once there, however, he finds himself caught up with a stranger wanted by the government, and soon ends up in prison. He and his unwanted companion escape, and now Jack must try to get back to safety while being hunted down by an iron-fisted tyrant.

The Eliminator

Former LAPD cop, Dakota Varley, enters a power boat race seeking the prize of $250,000, but immediately discovers, first hand, that this race's risk matches the prize: one racer is killed, 3 others seriously injured in multiple action-packed crashes and explosions. Varley tries to leave the lake and collect his prize money but is drugged and kidnapped by Dawson and thrown into a different world: a world where survival means everything and no-one follows the rules. Surrounded by heavily-armed men, he soon learns that he and six other victims have been assembled to be contestants in the ultimate survival game: they will be hunted nightly by hunters with rifles until there is one remaining survivor, who will win a $10,000,000 cash prize!

Adrenalin: Fear the Rush

In a not-too-distant future, a lethal virus sweeps across Europe, prompting the creation of quarantine refugee camps in the United States. Police officers Delon (Natasha Henstridge) and Lemieux (Christopher Lambert) learn of a grisly murder in the Boston camp and team up to investigate. Suspecting the ruthless killer is infected with the virus, the pair have just hours to stop him before he becomes contagious and infects the entire population.

The Human Race

One moment some 80 people are walking on a big city street. Suddenly a blinding light appears that transports them to a very peculiar racing course. A voice sounds in everybody’s head : “The school, the house and the prison are safe. Follow the arrows or you will die. Stay on the path or you will die. If you’re doubled twice, you will die. Do not touch the grass or you will die. Race or die.” Whether you’re rich or poor, old or young, blind, strong, handicapped, courageous or a coward; the rules make no distinction. There can be only one winner !

TekWar

After four years, Jake Cardigan is prematurely awoken from his fifteen year cryogenic punishment to a world very different than the one he knew. Much more than before 'Tek', the highly-addictive electronic designer narcotic of the 21st century, seems to be prevalent. His wife has divorced him and disappeared together with their son. He wants them back and he wants justice for those undercover policemen who were murdered by unknown conspirators which led to his imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.

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