Street Fighter Movies Ranked: Where the 2026 Film Lands

Paramount’s new Street Fighter hit US theatres on 16 October 2026. And the old fan debate is back in every group chat. Has this franchise ever made a good movie? We went digging, so here are the Street Fighter movies ranked, with real budgets, real box office and one honest verdict for each.

Fair warning: the big screen hasn’t been kind to Ryu and gang. One film earned back roughly a quarter of its budget. Critics roasted another, and it still made Capcom a fortune. The new one? Critics shrug, early audiences cheer.

So we ranked the three theatrical live-action films, then added a bonus round for the web series and the 1994 anime. Paisa Vasool Ya Time Waste? Chalo, let’s settle it.

Street Fighter Movies Ranked at a Glance

Short on time? Here’s the full scorecard before the fights begin.

• #1 Street Fighter (2026): $82M budget, $51.1M worldwide after its first weekend (as of 18 October), 40% on Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing. Verdict: Paisa Vasool, with a footnote.
• #2 Street Fighter (1994): $35M budget, about $99.4M worldwide, 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Verdict: Time Waste on paper, cult favourite in practice.
• #3 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009): $50M budget, $12.66M worldwide, 3% on Rotten Tomatoes. Verdict: Time Waste. No debate.
• Bonus: Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994): about $29M gross on roughly $6M, and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes (from only five reviews). Verdict: the best Street Fighter film isn’t live-action at all.

How We Ranked Them

To get these Street Fighter movies ranked fairly, we didn’t lean on one number. We weighed five things:

1. Critic scores, mostly Rotten Tomatoes, plus Metacritic where it exists.
2. Audience reaction, because fans and critics rarely agree on these films.
3. Box office against budget. Did people actually show up?
4. Faithfulness to the games and their roster.
5. Rewatch value. Would you put it on again with friends?

Critic and audience scores clash a lot, by the way. Our movie ratings explainer breaks down why BookMyShow, IMDb and critics almost never land on the same number.

#3: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

Let’s get the painful one out of the way.

20th Century Fox released The Legend of Chun-Li on 27 February 2009, with Andrzej Bartkowiak directing. Kristin Kreuk played Chun-Li and Neal McDonough played Bison. The supporting cast looked decent on paper. Chris Klein played Charlie Nash and Michael Clarke Duncan played Balrog. Taboo turned up as Vega, Robin Shou as Gen, and Moon Bloodgood rounded out the cast.

Then the numbers came in.

• Budget: $50 million
• Opening weekend: $4.72 million from 1,136 theatres
• Domestic total: $8.74 million
• Worldwide total: $12.66 million

That opening weekend made up 54% of the film’s entire domestic run. Translation: people turned up on day one, and then the audience vanished. Worldwide, it clawed back roughly 25% of its budget.

Critics went even harder. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 3% from 59 reviews, with an average rating of 2.3 out of 10. Three percent! The 1994 film looks like an award winner next to that.

One myth to bust while we’re here. Michelle Yeoh isn’t in this movie. Her name pops up in some listicles, but she’s not in the cast.

Paisa Vasool Ya Time Waste? Time Waste. Watch it only if you’re doing a completionist marathon and need a nap break in the middle.

#2: Street Fighter (1994)

Yes, the one with Jean-Claude Van Damme. Universal released it in the US on 23 December 1994. Steven E. de Souza wrote and directed it.

Van Damme played Col. William Guile. Raul Julia played General M. Bison, his final theatrical role. And Kylie Minogue, the pop star, played Lt. Cammy White. Wild casting, even for the 90s.

Critics hated it. Rotten Tomatoes puts it at 20% from 90 critics, with a 3.3/10 average. But here’s the twist: audiences paid for it anyway.

Per The Numbers, the film cost $35 million. It made $33.4 million in the US and $66 million internationally. That adds up to about $99.4 million worldwide, roughly 2.8 times its budget. Japanese cinemas got it later, on 6 May 1995.

The bigger number belongs to Capcom. The publisher earned about 15.5 billion yen, roughly $165 million, from the film’s box office plus home media. That’s Capcom’s take including video sales, not the movie’s gross. Still, it shows the brand made money even when critics trashed the film.

Why #2 and not #3? The 1994 film is pure camp, and camp ages better than boring. Raul Julia’s final big-screen role gives it real sentimental weight too.

Paisa Vasool Ya Time Waste? Time Waste if you want a faithful adaptation. Paisa Vasool if you want a so-bad-it’s-fun Friday night. At time of writing, JustWatch India lists it on Netflix, so it costs nothing extra if you already subscribe.

#1: Street Fighter (2026)

The new film takes the top spot. For now.

Kitao Sakurai directs, and he co-wrote the script with T. J. Fixman. Legendary produced it and Paramount released it in the US on 16 October 2026. The premiere took place at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on 12 October.

The story follows a second tournament six years after the events of 1987. That puts the action in the early 90s.

The casting team went big, and it finally looks like a character select screen:

• Andrew Koji as Ryu (and Dark Ryu)
• Noah Centineo as Ken
• Callina Liang as Chun-Li
• Roman Reigns as Akuma
• David Dastmalchian as M. Bison
• Cody Rhodes as Guile
• Jason Momoa as Blanka
• 50 Cent as Balrog
• Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim

Don Lee plays Gouken, Orville Peck plays Vega and Olivier Richters plays Zangief. Hirooki Goto takes E. Honda, and Mel Jarnson plays Cammy. Andrew Schulz shows up as Dan, while Eric Andre plays Don Sauvage.

The Vidyut Jammwal Angle

For Indian fans, this is the big one. Vidyut Jammwal plays Dhalsim in his Hollywood debut. His first look showed him bald with war paint, as The Hollywood Reporter India reported.

Mild spoiler ahead. Ken beats Dhalsim in the semifinals, but Dhalsim later helps the group with transport. So he sticks around after his fight, which is more than most side characters get in these films.

Box Office and Reviews So Far

Money first. The film carries a reported $82 million budget, co-financed by Legendary and Capcom. Thursday previews brought in $4 million, according to TheWrap. It then opened at #1 in the US and Canada with a reported $31 million. Worldwide, it stood at $51.1 million as of 18 October.

Reviews are where things get messy:

• Rotten Tomatoes: 40% from 113 reviews (average 4.8/10) at time of writing
• Metacritic: 44 out of 100 from 26 critics, which means mixed or average
• Early audience score: 82%, per TheWrap on 16 October, when critics sat at 46%

So the critic score has already slipped from 46% to 40%. Audiences, on the other hand, seem to be having a good time.

Why does it top our Street Fighter movies ranked list? It has double the 1994 film’s critic score. It has an 82% early audience score. And its roster actually resembles the games. If the critic number keeps sliding toward 20%, though, Van Damme could take this spot back.

Paisa Vasool Ya Time Waste? Paisa Vasool for fans of the games. Casual viewers, read a couple of reviews first. And don’t rush out when the screen goes black, because there’s a mid-credits scene with an animated Sagat.

Bonus Round: Assassin’s Fist and the Anime

Two more titles deserve a shout, even though they sit outside the main ranking.

Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist (2014)

This one started as a British martial-arts web series, not a cinema release. It premiered on YouTube through Machinima on 23 May 2014, as 12 episodes of about 12 minutes each. IFC Films later put out a recompiled film version on 7 January 2015.

Joey Ansah directed it and also played the older Gouki, aka Akuma. Mike Moh played Ryu and Christian Howard played Ken. Wikipedia counts it as the third live-action Street Fighter adaptation.

Our take: it’s the most interesting curiosity on this list. The short episodes also make it an easy watch on a phone.

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)

Honest admission: the best-reviewed film on this list is a cartoon. Gisaburo Sugii directed it, and Group TAC handled the animation. It opened in Japan on 6 August 1994.

Plenty of lists say it reached the US in 1995. It actually arrived on 16 January 1996.

The numbers back up its reputation. It cost about $6 million and grossed about $29 million, with more than $16 million coming from Japan alone. That made it one of the top five Japanese films of 1994. US home video sales came close to 500,000 copies. It holds 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, though that’s from just five reviews.

Its two most famous scenes? The Ryu vs Sagat opener and Chun-Li’s fight with Vega in her apartment. Anime-first viewers can check our best anime streaming platform in India guide before hunting it down.

The franchise has other animated titles too, including Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie, Street Fighter Alpha: Generations and Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind.

Where Street Fighter Sits in Video Game Movie History

Any honest list of Street Fighter movies ranked needs some context. Street Fighter didn’t invent the bad video game movie. Super Mario Bros. got there first.

That film opened on 28 May 1993. It counts as the first American feature-length live-action movie based on a video game. It cost somewhere between $42 million and $48 million and grossed only about $38.9 million worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes rates it 26%, yet it built a cult following anyway.

Street Fighter followed 19 months later with the same early-90s playbook. Big stars, a campy tone and loose loyalty to the source. Neither film nailed it, and both found fans regardless.

Fast forward to 2026, and the real rival is Mortal Kombat II. It opened in the US on 8 May 2026 with $38.5 million, landing second behind The Devil Wears Prada 2. It has reached $129.5 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. Critics gave it 63% on Rotten Tomatoes from 207 reviews.

Now compare that with Street Fighter’s $31 million opening and 40% score. Mortal Kombat II wins this round, at least for now. Street Fighter has had just one weekend, so the worldwide gap isn’t a fair fight yet. Our Mortal Kombat II review has the full story on that sequel.

Street Fighter Movies in Order (and Where to Stream in India)

Planning a marathon? Here’s the release order:

1. Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie: Japan, August 1994
2. Street Fighter: US, December 1994
3. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li: 2009
4. Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist: 2014 web series, 2015 film cut
5. Street Fighter: 2026, now in theatres

Our pick for a weekend binge? Start with the 1994 anime. Follow it with Van Damme for the laughs. Then catch the 2026 film on the big screen. Skip Chun-Li unless you’re a completionist.

On streaming, JustWatch India lists the 1994 Street Fighter on Netflix at time of writing, on the ₹149-a-month tier. Availability for the other titles keeps changing, so check JustWatch before you plan your night. Not sure which subscription you need? Our best OTT platforms in India 2026 guide compares prices and plans.

So, Is Street Fighter Finally Worth It?

Thirty-two years after Van Damme, Street Fighter still hasn’t landed a flawless combo in live action. The 2026 film gets closer than anything before it, and that 82% audience score says fans feel it. But a 40% critic score is still a 40% critic score.

Our call? Book the ticket if you grew up mashing buttons on an arcade cabinet. If you didn’t, the 1994 anime might win you over faster than any Hollywood version. Ask us again in a month, because this Street Fighter movies ranked list could flip if the critics keep sliding.

So, team Van Damme or team Andrew Koji? Tell us in the comments.

Part of our Street Fighter movie coverage: start with the complete Street Fighter movie guide. You may also like our Street Fighter movie cast and characters.