The Running Man (2025) Review: Better Than the Box Office Suggests

🏃 Introduction

I went and got Paramount+ for Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender, and while I was in there poking around the catalog to see what else was worth my time, I stumbled onto The Running Man (2025) — Edgar Wright’s remake of the film I grew up knowing as an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. I went in with fairly low expectations, the way you do with a remake of a movie that already has a specific, campy reputation. I came out having genuinely enjoyed it. Not a perfect film, but a solid one, and one that deserves better than the modest box office numbers it pulled in theaters.

Ad

The Running Man (2025) [4K/BD Combo w/Digital Copy] (opens in a new tab)

The 2025 remake in 4K — the game-show broadcast sequences and neon-lit chase scenes are the reason to spring for the disc over streaming.

That’s the thing about this one: it flopped in theaters relative to its ambitions — a worldwide total under $70 million against real production scale — and then went on to post strong numbers once it landed on streaming. That pattern usually means one of two things: either the marketing failed a genuinely good film, or word of mouth is inflating something mediocre because it’s free with a subscription people already have. Having watched it, I’d put this firmly in the first camp.

🎯 The Story: Still Works, Decades Later

The premise hasn’t changed since Stephen King wrote it as Richard Bachman back in 1982, and honestly, that’s the strongest evidence for how well it was built in the first place: a desperate man in a dystopian, ratings-obsessed America signs up for a televised death chase because the prize money is the only path left to save someone he loves. In this version, Glen Powell plays Ben Richards, a working-class father whose daughter is sick and whose options have run out. He doesn’t sign up for glory. He signs up because the math left him nothing else, and Powell plays that desperation as genuine rather than as an action-hero pose he’s reluctantly putting on. That distinction matters — it’s the difference between a story about survival and a story about a guy who’s secretly excited to be an action hero for two hours.

The premise still lands because the satire underneath it — a society that will watch anything if the stakes are high enough and the packaging is slick enough — has only gotten more relevant, not less, since the 1987 original hit theaters. The show-within-the-film, run by producer Dan Killian and hosted by the smoothly reptilian Bobby T., leans into that satire without hammering it. It trusts the audience to notice how much the broadcast style resembles something they’d actually watch, rather than stopping the plot to explain the point.

Ad

The Running Man (1987) 4K Ultra HD + Digital — Arnold Schwarzenegger (opens in a new tab)

The Paul Michael Glaser original this remake is measured against. Worth a back-to-back watch to see how differently each decade told the same Stephen King story.

Where the story genuinely earns its runtime is the middle stretch, where Richards is out in the world being hunted and the film gets to be a proper chase thriller — tense, well-paced, geographically coherent in a way action films don’t always bother with. It never loses track of where Richards is or why, which sounds like a low bar until you’ve sat through a film that doesn’t clear it.

🎭 The Cast Is Doing the Heavy Lifting — and Doing It Well

Here’s where this remake actually separates itself: the casting is genuinely excellent, top to bottom. Glen Powell has spent the last few years proving he can carry a lead role with real weight behind the charm, and Ben Richards asks for exactly that combination — someone likeable enough to root for and desperate enough to believe. He delivers.

But the film’s best asset is Josh Brolin as Dan Killian, and I’ll say it plainly: the man is simply very good at this. Brolin has built a genuine specialty out of playing men who are dangerous specifically because they’re calm about it — no scenery-chewing, no cartoon menace, just an unhurried confidence that he’ll get what he wants because he always does. Killian is exactly that archetype, dressed up as a reality-TV producer instead of a cartel boss or a supervillain, and Brolin makes him compelling in every scene he’s in without ever needing to raise his voice. If you’ve watched him in enough of these roles, you already know what you’re getting, and what you’re getting is reliably excellent.

The supporting cast backs that up rather than coasting on it — Colman Domingo’s TV host is oily in exactly the right register, and Lee Pace as the masked hunter tracking Richards brings real physical presence to a role that could have been a faceless obstacle in lesser hands.

Ad

The Running Man by Stephen King (opens in a new tab)

The 1982 novel, written as Richard Bachman, that both films are based on — leaner and meaner than either adaptation.

🎬 Where It Loses Its Nerve

I want to be honest about the one real complaint, because otherwise this reads as more of an unqualified win than it actually is: the ending is the film’s weakest stretch. Without spoiling specifics, it pulls back from where the story has been building toward, softening a conclusion that the rest of the film had earned the right to deliver harder. It’s not a bad ending — it’s a slightly safer one than the two hours before it deserved, and it left me wishing the filmmakers had trusted their own setup a little more. A story about a system this cynical earns a conclusion with more teeth than the one it gets.

That’s a real knock, but it’s the only one. Everything leading up to it — the pacing, the cast, the satire, the chase mechanics — works, and works consistently. It’s better than average by a comfortable margin, and it’s the kind of remake that respects why the original premise stuck around this long instead of just borrowing the title.

🎮 How It Stacks Up Against the Rest of the Deadly-Game-Show Shelf

The “ordinary person forced into a televised death game” premise has gotten crowded over the last decade — Squid Game and the modern Hunger Games films have both mined the same basic idea, and any new entry has to justify why it’s not just retreading ground those two already covered well. The Running Man’s advantage is that it’s not actually new ground at all; the King novel and the 1987 film predate both of those franchises by decades, and this remake leans into that lineage rather than pretending otherwise.

Where it differentiates itself is in the specifics of its satire. Squid Game is fundamentally about class and debt; the Hunger Games films are about state control and rebellion. The Running Man has always been most interested in the media machine itself — the idea that the broadcast and the audience watching it are as much the villain as the people running the game. This version keeps that focus, and it’s the sharpest thing about the film. Killian isn’t just a game-show producer; he’s the embodiment of an audience that will watch anything as long as it’s packaged well enough, and Brolin plays him as someone who genuinely believes he’s just giving people what they want.

If you’ve already worn out Squid Game and the Hunger Games catalog and are looking for more of the same basic premise with a different angle, this earns its spot on that shelf. It doesn’t reinvent anything, but it also doesn’t need to — the core idea was strong enough sixty-some years ago that Stephen King wrote it, and it’s still strong enough now.

📺 Streaming it tonight? Prime Video’s 30-day free trial is worth having in your back pocket for whatever’s not on your current platform.

Is The Running Man (2025) worth watching?

Yes — it’s a genuinely strong thriller that outperforms its underwhelming box office numbers. The cast is the biggest reason: Glen Powell carries the lead role well, and Josh Brolin is exactly as good as he always is playing a slippery, self-satisfied villain. The story holds up and stays tense throughout. A 4/5 that deserves the streaming audience it’s now finding.

Where can I watch The Running Man (2025)?

It’s streaming on Paramount+ and MGM+ after debuting there on January 13, 2026, following its November 2025 theatrical run. A 4K/Blu-ray release followed on March 3, 2026.

How does The Running Man (2025) compare to the 1987 Schwarzenegger original?

They’re different films telling the same Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman) premise. The 1987 version, directed by Paul Michael Glaser, leans hard into 80s action-movie camp. The 2025 remake, directed by Edgar Wright, plays it straighter and more dystopian-thriller than pure action spectacle. Neither is a replacement for the other — they’re worth watching as a pair to see how differently each decade approached the same story.

Is The Running Man (2025) good for a family movie night?

No. It’s rated R for strong violence, gore, and language — this is a night-after-the-kids-are-in-bed watch, not a family pick. Sixteen and up at the earliest, and even that depends on the household.

Who plays the villain in The Running Man (2025)?

Josh Brolin plays Dan Killian, the ruthless producer behind the deadly game show. Colman Domingo plays the show’s on-air host, Bobby T. Brolin’s Killian is the real antagonist of the film, and he’s very good at it — the character type suits him.