Movie · 2023 · Thriller, History, Drama · 1h 58m · R · English
Curator score: 4.7/10 (106.6K ratings)
The game you couldn't put down. The story you couldn't make up.
Overview
In 1988, American video game salesman Henk Rogers discovers the video game Tetris. When he sets out to bring the game to the world, he enters a dangerous web of lies and corruption behind the Iron Curtain.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.7/10
IMDb: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 81%
Metacritic: 61
TMDB: 7.7/10
Director
Jon S. Baird
Production
Marv, AI Film, Unigram, Cloudy Productions
Cast
Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Ben Miles, Ken Yamamura, Igor Grabuzov, Oleg Stefan, Ayane Nagabuchi, Rick Yune, Roger Allam, Toby Jones, Mara Huf, Miles Barrow, Alexey Shedko, Natalia Gonchar, Ayano Yamamoto, Nino Furuhata, Togo Igawa, Kanon Narumi
Where to watch
Apple TV Plus
Curator Review
Verdict
A slick, crowd-pleasing true-story thriller with a strong central performance and a playful sense of momentum, but it often simplifies the history into a glossy chase movie. If you want an entertaining Cold War business caper, it works; if you want a deeper film about the game’s creation or the Soviet system, it feels thin.
Best for
viewers who like true-story corporate or espionage capers
fans of brisk 1980s-set thrillers
people who enjoy charismatic lead performances
audiences open to historical drama with a pop-movie tone
Skip if
you want strict historical fidelity
you’re looking for a serious film about video game history
you dislike broad, lightly comic tonal shifts
you prefer character studies over plot-driven entertainment
Overview
Tetris turns a surprisingly knotty rights battle into a fast-moving Cold War thriller, and that’s both its biggest strength and its biggest compromise. It has the snap of a studio crowd-pleaser, with clean visual storytelling, propulsive pacing, and a lead performance that keeps the whole thing buoyant even when the plot gets absurdly convoluted.
Worth noting
The movie’s best idea is to treat intellectual property like a spy operation: contracts, licenses, and backroom deals become as suspenseful as any chase scene. That gives it a playful edge, but it also means the film often skims past the deeper human and political material in favor of momentum and accessibility.
Bottom line
As a piece of entertainment, it goes down easily. As a historical drama, it’s more efficient than revealing. The result is a polished, watchable caper that earns recommendation more for energy and charm than for insight.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Richard Lawson (3★) · 3528 likes
Taron and Mr. Tetris should have kissed
esther (1★) · 3227 likes
as someone who considers Tetris the game to be an achievement of human expression on par with the the sistine chapel or michaelangelo's david, any variety of film adaptation was going to have a high bar to clear for me. that this film chose to take Henk Rogers, the man who locked down the rights to sell Tetris, as its primary subject rather than the game's actual creator, Alexey Pajitnov, was another strike against it. the film is part of… more as someone who considers Tetris the game to be an achievement of human expression on par with the the sistine chapel or michaelangelo's david, any variety of film adaptation was going to have a high bar to clear for me. that this film chose to take Henk Rogers, the man who locked down the rights to sell Tetris, as its primary subject rather than the game's actual creator, Alexey Pajitnov, was another strike against it. the film is part of… more
megan (3.5★) · 2615 likes
Tetris collapsed the USSR?
Reece (3.5★) · 2572 likes
best use of “I Need a Hero” since Shrek 2‼️
(real review: this movie is Argo for video game nerds in the best way possible)
nathan (3★) · 1863 likes
the sexual chemistry taron had with both tetris and the tetris inventor
2013 · Crime, Drama, Comedy · 3h · R · Curator 7.9/10 (5.7M ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, AMC+, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
For viewers who enjoy a fast, swaggering movie about ambition, deals, and moral slipperiness.