The Game(1997)

R
Rated R for language, and for some violence and sexuality
2h 9m

Release Date: Sep 12, 1997 | Wide

B-
7.7

A mysterious game invades a man's ordered existence.

Note: Distributed by PolyGram

Releases

Original Release | Sep 12, 1997

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Box Office Results

Updated as of May 14, 2026 11:56 AM ET

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$14,337,029
Total US & Canada:
$48,323,648
Total International
$61,100,000
Total Worldwide:
$109,423,648

Current Showtimes

orround

Thu Aug 20
Fri Aug 21
Sat Aug 22
Sun Aug 23
Mon Aug 24
Tue Aug 25
Wed Aug 26

Director & Top Cast

David Fincher
Director

Michael Douglas
Nicholas Van Orton

Deborah Kara Unger
Christine

Sean Penn
Conrad

James Rebhorn
Jim Feingold

Peter Donat
Samuel Sutherland

Carroll Baker

Ilsa

Anna Katarina

Elizabeth

Armin Mueller-Stahl

Anson Baer

Charles Martinet

Nicholas' Father

Scott Hunter McGuire

Young Nicholas

Florentine Mocanu

Nicholas' Mother

Elizabeth Dennehy

Maria

Caroline Barclay

Maggie

Daniel Schorr

Daniel Schorr

John Aprea

Power Executive

Harrison Young

Obsequious Executive

Kimberly Russell

Cynthia, CRS Receptionist

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: DTS,Dolby Digital,SDDS

Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: United States

Language: English,Cantonese,German,Spanish,Thai

Summaries

Plot Summary

Nicholas Van Orton (Douglas) is a successful and extremely wealthy investment banker, but his success has come at the cost of his personal life. Nicholas is also cold and condescending, as well as lonely and reclusive. He is estranged from both his ex-wife and his only brother. He remains haunted from having seen his father commit suicide, by jumping off the roof of the family mansion, on the latter's 48th birthday. On his own 48th birthday, Conrad (Sean Penn), Nicholas' rebellious younger brother, presents Nicholas with an unusual gift-a voucher for a "game" offered by a company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Conrad promises that it will change Nick's life.Nicholas has doubts about the gift and delays calling CRS. A chance encounter with fellow club members who enjoyed the Game changes Nicholas' mind. He goes to the organization's offices to apply and is irritated by the lengthy and time-consuming series of psychological and physical examinations required. He is later informed that his application has been rejected.Nicholas returns home one evening to find a wooden clown in his driveway which he drags inside. While watching the Cable Financial Network (CFN), the anchor begins talking to Nicholas through his television screen. The anchor tells Nicholas that he is being watched by a tiny camera in the head of the clown and provides him with the telephone number for a CRS 24-hour emergency hot-line. He warns Nicholas not to call the hot-line asking about the object of the game as "figuring that out is the object of the game." More bizarre events continue happening; Nicholas initially thinks CRS are simply staging elaborate pranks, but then he starts to believe it is real when his business, reputation, and safety are endangered. Nicholas is also haunted by his father's suicide, which he witnessed as a child.He encounters a waitress, Christine (Deborah Kara Unger), who appears to have been caught up in the game and also comes under risk. Conrad visits Nicholas and apologizes, claiming CRS has attacked him. An argument breaks out between the two brothers, resulting in Conrad running away-leaving Nicholas on his own. Nicholas gets into a taxi; after locking the doors, the driver jumps out before the car crashes into San Francisco Bay. Nicholas manages to escape the sinking car and make it to the surface. Nicholas contacts the police to investigate CRS, but they find the offices abandoned.Eventually, Conrad appears to Nicholas and apologizes for the Game claiming that he too has come under attack by CRS. With no one else to turn to, Nicholas finds Christine's home. He soon discovers that she is a CRS employee and that her apartment has simply been staged to look like a real apartment. Christine tells Nicholas that they are being watched. Nicholas attacks a camera, and armed CRS troops begin to swarm the house and fire upon them. Nicholas and Christine are forced to flee.Christine later tells him CRS has drained his bank accounts by guessing his passwords using the psychological tests he completed, but his lawyer says the money in the accounts is still there. Christine tells him that some of his closest associates are part of the Game. Just as he begins to trust Christine, he begins to feel dizzy and realizes Christine has drugged him. As he loses consciousness, she admits she is part of the scam and says he made a fatal mistake in giving his card security code over the phone.Nicholas wakes up to find himself entombed in a cemetery in Mexico. He is forced to sell his gold watch to return to the United States. Upon his return, he finds that his mansion has been ransacked and vandalized by CRS. He contacts the hotel where Conrad was staying and is told his brother has been committed to a mental institution following a nervous breakdown.He retrieves a hidden gun and seeks the aid of his estranged wife. While talking with her and apologizing for his neglect and mistreatment of her, he discovers that Jim Feingold (James Rebhorn), the CRS employee who had conducted his psychological test, is an actor who works in television advertisements. He locates Feingold and forces him to take Nicholas to CRS, where he takes Christine hostage. He demands to be taken to the leader of the organization.Attacked by CRS troops, Nicholas takes Christine to the roof and bars the door behind them. The CRS troops begin cutting through the door. Christine realizes that Nicholas' gun is not a prop and is terrified. She frantically tells Nicholas that the conspiracy is a hoax, a fiction that is just part of the Game, that his finances are intact and that his family and friends are waiting on the other side of the door. He refuses to believe her. The door bursts open, and Nicholas shoots the first person to emerge: his brother Conrad, bearing an open bottle of champagne. Distraught, Nicholas leaps off the roof, just as his late father did.Nicholas' life passes before his eyes as he falls. He smashes through a glass roof and lands on a giant air bag. Emergency medical technicians carefully remove him, warning him to keep his eyes closed until they remove the fragments of breakaway glass. Nicholas finds he is in a ballroom full of his friends, family, and every figure involved in his Game; it had been just a game all along. Conrad is alive and well and explains that he initiated the game to get his brother to embrace life and not end up like their father.Nicholas breaks into tears, relaxes, and begins to enjoy the party once his shock has dissipated. Later, Nicholas splits the bill for the game with Conrad (and is surprised to discover how expensive it all was). When he sees that Christine has left the party, he follows her outside to her cab. He asks her to dinner, and she offers to enjoy a private coffee with him now before her flight takes her to her next Game assignment.

Storyline

Nicholas Van Orton is a very wealthy San Francisco banker, but he is an absolute loner, even spending his birthday alone. In the year of his 48th birthday (the age his father committed suicide) his brother Conrad, who has gone long ago and surrendered to addictions of all kinds, suddenly returns and gives Nicholas a card giving him entry to unusual entertainment provided by something called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS). Giving in to curiosity, Nicholas visits CRS and all kinds of weird and bad things start to happen to him. — Anonymous Michael Douglas plays Nicholas Van Orton, a Scrooge-like San Francisco investment banker following in his father's Scrooge-like footsteps. On Nicholas's 48th birthday (the age at which his father committed suicide), his younger, free-spirited brother Conrad (Sean Penn) blows into town and gives Nicholas a special gift for "the man who has everything" -- a ticket to CRS (Consumer Recreation Services), a company that constructs games custom-fit for each participant to provide, as CRS salesman Jim Feingold (James Rebhorn) cryptically puts it, "whatever is lacking." Nicholas's secure life begins a downhill slide as CRS masterminds a series of elaborate pranks, harmless at first, that quickly become malicious and life-threatening. Stripped of financial resources and convinced that he can trust no one, Nicholas begins to wonder if CRS is a front for a more covert operation, and if the game is in fact an attempt to steal his fortune and leave him for dead. Determined to fight back alone, Nicholas infiltrates CRS in order to "pull back the curtain and meet the wizard." Nicholas Van Orton (Douglas) is a joyless San Francisco investment banker who receives an unusual birthday present from his estranged younger brother, Conrad (Penn). The gift enrols Nicholas in CRS (Consumer Recreation Services), a company that designs elaborate real-life games for each specific participant. Nicholas then becomes the victim of a series of pranks that quickly turn malicious and dangerous.

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