Free Guy (2021) directed by Shawn Levy is the latest of Ryan Reynold’s blockbuster hits. The action-comedy follows Guy (Ryan Reynolds), an NPC in a game called Free City. He’s a stock background character whose purpose is to facilitate the real-world players as they wreak havoc on the city. He gets killed over and over again and wakes up to be gleefully put in another run-of-the-mill hostage situation the next day. Until he decides to try something different.
Guy becomes aware of his own consciousness and, after meeting a mysterious woman he calls Molotov Girl, realizes he can exert his own free will in Free City just like the real world players, and so he sets out to be the good guy, saving Free City from havoc. The only problem is, the game will soon be shut down and with it, Guy will lose himself and along with him, any chance for the other NPCs to gain their freedom will be lost as well. He and Molotov Girl (who turns out to be a real player as well as a game developer) seek to save Free City and everyone who resides in it. The film offers an engaging and charming original premise that leaves one looking for something just as fun and engaging. If you watched Free Guy and can’t wait for the sequel, check out some of these films to quench your thirst.
The Truman Show (1998)
The Truman Show follows Truman (Jim Carrey) as he realizes his whole life is not what it seems. He’s actually been the subject of the world's strangest reality show wherein everyone in his life except him is an actor, all putting on an elaborate show about Truman for the masses to watch. It feels, in premise, like the inverse of Free Guy. Where Truman is the only “real” person unaware of the fake world, Guy is a “fake” guy unaware of the real world. Their journeys, however, parallel each other closely as they learn to interrogate the limits of the roles they’ve been given and the worlds they’d never thought to question their place in. Thematically they also share the question of personhood versus entertainment. Is it worth staying in their fake worlds for the sake of providing entertainment for the masses? Both films offer a frank “no”. The assertion of both of these films is that with consciousness, with personhood, comes a right to self-determination. Guy and Truman can both only be free when they’ve left behind the bounds of the roles they’ve been assigned to play.
The Lego Movie (2014)
Perhaps the film with the most obvious similarities to Free Guy, The Lego Movie offers a setup for its lead character, Emmet (Chris Pratt), that is nearly identical to Guy’s. In both films we see the characters wake up and go about their mundane everyday lives to their mundane everyday jobs while drinking mundane everyday coffee. Emmet and Guy are just running through the motions of life as they’ve been expected to live it, never questioning their places in it. Until either of them encounters a woman from outside their daily experiences that leads them on an adventure that shows them they can be far more than what they’d thought. These films share an incredible similarity in their frameworks and themes but the paths they take to reach those ends are both extremely unique, charming, and humorous.
Where Free Guy draws a lot of its humor from its video game setting, The Lego Movie takes full advantage of its unique Lego animation style to pull off truly unique humor that could not be accomplished with another medium. Both films. While goofy action-comedies, ultimately reach heartwarming conclusions about valuing oneself and others.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)
If there’s any film that revels in its video game aesthetics more than Free Guy, it’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The story follows Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) as he attempts to win the heart of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) by getting into comically video game-like fights with her seven evil exes. He has to defeat them if he ever hopes to have a chance with Ramona. And along the way, Scott will learn to become a better person himself. The film is packed to the brim with clever humor and video game-based gags so even if the film doesn’t actually take place inside a video game, you feel like it could.
Scott Pilgrim is a film about self-discovery just as much as Free Guy. But where Guy is trying to figure out whom he wants to be, Scott is concerned with learning who he doesn’t want to be. His trials with the exes reveal not only their flaws but his own, and it culminates in a story that’s less about winning the girl and more about being confident and comfortable as his own person. It’s got the same self-aware wit that makes Free Guy so fun to watch with the added bonus of insane amounts of style courtesy of director Edgar Wright.
Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Stranger Than Fiction follows Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) who’s an ordinary everyday office worker going through the motions of his humdrum life until he encounters a mysterious woman. Sound familiar? Well, not exactly. The mysterious woman for Harold isn’t a cool and mysterious stranger he catches a glimpse of but instead a voice inside his head, dictating his actions. He soon discovers this is the voice of an author writing her next novel, and she’s planning to kill Harold off. Now he needs to race against the clock to try and stop his own fictional demise from becoming his real-life fate. Ultimately, this is a story about free will. While their premises may diverge, the cores of Free Guy and Stranger Than Fiction are made of the same stuff. They aim to tell unique stories about free will, its limits, and how we can only truly be free when we take our lives into our own hands.
Wreck It Ralph (2012)
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Wreck It Ralph follows the titular Ralph (John C Reilly) as he decides to leave behind his role as a video game villain at an arcade to try and find a new game better suited to him. One where he can determine his own fate, where he can find companionship, and where he feels appreciated. The film takes him through many games on a journey of self-discovery as he realizes programming certainly isn’t everything.
Wreck It Ralph takes an unorthodox approach to the idea of self-aware video game characters in that it all the characters are aware they are in a game from the start. This allows them to take the moral dilemma of the film in a different direction. Rather than questioning if Ralph is alive, it’s more concerned with his free will. Does a guy who plays a bad guy have to be a bad guy himself? This is very similar to the initial conflict in Free Guy, can Guy be one of the sunglasses people or must he simply stay an NPC? In both cases, the answer doesn’t come down to programming. Where Free Guy tells the tale of one video game character liberating the rest and asserting their rights to free will, Wreck It Ralph is the story of one character liberating himself. The role one is assigned does not determine who they truly are, only they can do that themselves.
TRON: Legacy (2010)
If your favorite part of Free Guy was the fascinating world-building for Free City or the unique employment of video game mechanics, TRON: Legacy may be the next best step for you. TRON: Legacy follows Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), a young man following a lead on the disappearance of his father that occurred 20 years ago. In the process, he’s pulled into the game of TRON, a retro game currently under a pseudo-fascist regime. Sam along with one of the beings who live inside the game, a warrior named Quorra, must find Sam’s father and try and escape from the virtual prison his father has been trapped in all this time.
This film takes a different approach to action than Free Guy, taking on fewer first-person shooter elements and more inspiration from retro games. The action is tense, the world-building is intricate, and Daft Punk’s soundtrack is always firing on all cylinders. This film also deals with questions of artificial intelligence and how it compares to human life which contrasts interestingly with how straightforwardly Free Guy seems to accept the premise of artificial consciousness. It’s a fun (if sometimes confusing) romp through another fantastically immersive virtual world.
Ready Player One (2018)
Another film about finding secrets hidden inside a virtual world, Ready Player One takes on a treasure hunter approach rather than the action-hero one favored in Free Guy. Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) is one of many players in the virtual world of the OASIS (a virtual reality that has basically taken over all facets of life) trying to hunt down the prize left behind by the OASIS’s creator after his death. He teams up with other treasure hunters to try and take the prize for themselves and prevent it from falling into the hands of a corporation that would only seek to further commodify the OASIS. The films differ a lot in how they deliver their stories but are both about individuals seeking to prevent corporations from dominating games and sucking all the life out of them. If the action-adventure of Free Guy was intriguing, Ready Player One delivers on video game-style action in spades.