Ender's Game

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Ender's Game

PG-13

2013

2h 14m

Sci-Fi

Adventure

Action

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

62%

Tomatometer

224 Reviews

65%

Popcornmeter

100,000+ Ratings

When hostile aliens called the Formics attack Earth, only the legendary heroics of Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) manage to attain a victory. To prepare for the next attack, Col. Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and his cohorts initiate a military program to find the next Mazer. Recruit Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) exhibits an unusual gift for the training, easily mastering all the challenges thrown at him. Mazer Rackham, himself, takes Ender as a protégé to prepare him for the oncoming war.

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Critics Consensus

If it isn't quite as thought-provoking as the book, Ender's Game still manages to offer a commendable number of well-acted, solidly written sci-fi thrills.

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Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

metro.co.uk

Sep 6, 2017

4/5

Starship Troopers, Alien, Tron and Star Trek also make up the movie's DNA but the story - a provocative study about the morality of warfare and conflicts of leadership - injects something powerful and new into the familiar 'chosen one' plot trajectory.

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Geoffrey Macnab

Independent (UK)

Feb 21, 2014

2/5

The battle scenes are spectacular but lifeless and hard to engage with. We're watching a cascade of computer-game imagery.

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David Stratton

At the Movies (Australia)

Feb 18, 2014

2.5/5

It was a bit like standing in a room where someone is playing a video game on a screen and you're not actually taking part in it but you have to watch interminably this game being played and it's just really a bit boring.

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Matt Oakes

Silver Screen Riot

Oct 15, 2026

C

Hood can't help himself but to let them fly in your face, like the drilling of drones in the film's finale, never really developing the ever-important 'why?' behind it all.

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JD Duran

InSession Film

Aug 15, 2024

B+

Ender’s Game is a fun, dramatic look that is different and unique for most sci-fi movies. While it follows the basic trope of alien invasion, it quickly turns into a moral dilemma that involves some heavy and complex themes.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

Sep 8, 2023

2/4

Not having read Card’s novel, I couldn’t say whether it was truly “unfilmable,” but what ends up on the screen is indeed “filmable” in that we’ve seen these narrative threads countless times before in science fiction cinema.

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Daniel L

@Hotchopeppa 1 day ago

Brilliant movie. Awesome from start to finish. Great writing and really well cast. If you like sci-fi you’ll love this. I just wish they had continued with the rest of the novels.

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Jacob N

@RT52041609 Oct 15, 2026

Great consistent execution

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Larry W

@LarrywNJ Aug 25, 2026

If I did not read the book i may have enjoyed this better. I know it is a try at merging to books into one enders game and enders shadow with that said the changes that were made to make it more kid friendly kind of dumbed down the story. Harrison for play a great col. Graff. Ben kingsley this was not the role for him he is a great actor but the script and costume dept. did him dirty with the face tattoo not good look for him. if you enjoyed the move read the books by Orson Scott Card.

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Ruize S

@ruize Jun 2, 2026

A very mediocre movie: not good, not bad. The acting at times feels unnatural and the dialogue feels strange. I think the concept of the moral conflict is great but the execution could be better.

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Colby G

@RT22705501 May 31, 2026

I have never read the book or any of the books that bear the same name. I thought the movie was really good. I think that it's kind of up to the director / producer to decide on what kind of story they want to tell. Obviously. But I mean they took an existing story and they made the movie they wanted to make. The movie is great if you find battle strategy and tactics interesting. Character development was a little light but it was a long movie already so I suppose you got to make cuts somewhere. I think the actors did a great job. It is stereotypical that Military leaders just want to destroy the enemy and ask the hard questions later. But that's a stereotype that exists for a reason. Not all military commanders are like that, some do ask the hard questions. Smart military commanders will try peace first and say that diplomatic solutions keep military solutions from being required. Though if the Earth was faced with an existential threat, I bet the response would be violence 1st.

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Mikendrick G

@GodzillaFOREVER May 8, 2026

The whole movie felt a bit rushed, but overall it was pretty good

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Gavin Hood

Director

Harrison Ford

Col. Hyrum Graff

Asa Butterfield

Ender Wiggin

Hailee Steinfeld

Petra Arkanian

Abigail Breslin

Valentine Wiggin

Ben Kingsley

Mazer Rackham

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Synopsis

When hostile aliens called the Formics attack Earth, only the legendary heroics of Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) manage to attain a victory. To prepare for the next attack, Col. Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and his cohorts initiate a military program to find the next Mazer. Recruit Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) exhibits an unusual gift for the training, easily mastering all the challenges thrown at him. Mazer Rackham, himself, takes Ender as a protégé to prepare him for the oncoming war.

Director: Gavin Hood
Producer: Gigi Pritzker, Linda McDonough, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Robert Chartoff, Lynn Hendee, Orson Scott Card, Ed Ulbrich
Screenwriter: Gavin Hood
Distributor: Summit Entertainment
Production Co: Taleswapper, K/O Paper Products, Digital Domain, Odd Lot Entertainment, Lions Gate Films, Summit Entertainment, Chartoff Productions
Rating: PG-13 (Some Violence|Sci-Fi Action|Thematic Material)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure, Action
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Nov 1, 2013, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 19, 2015
Box Office (Gross USA): $61.7M
Runtime: 2h 14m
Sound Mix: Datasat, Dolby Digital

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