Updated Sep 28, 2026: tickets are on sale, the runtime (1 hour 59 minutes) and PG-13 rating are locked, and we’ve added both official trailers plus the full cast-to-character list. Reviews aren’t out yet; we’ll add them when they land.
The new Street Fighter movie punches into US theaters on Friday, Oct 16, 2026, and tickets are already on sale. It’s rated PG-13 and runs 1 hour 59 minutes. Paramount distributes, Legendary and Capcom produce, and it was filmed for IMAX. Kitao Sakurai directs a stacked, slightly chaotic ensemble: Andrew Koji is Ryu, Noah Centineo is Ken, Callina Liang is Chun-Li, and Jason Momoa is Blanka. Yes, really. Here’s everything confirmed about the Street Fighter movie so far.
Street Fighter movie release date, tickets and runtime
- Release date: Oct 16, 2026 in US theaters. It’s the first film under Legendary’s three-year distribution deal with Paramount, announced in September 2025. Legendary’s old deal with Sony had expired, which is why the movie moved studios.
- Early screenings: A “Bonus Round” opening-night fan event runs Thursday, Oct 15 at 7 p.m. local time in IMAX and premium formats like Dolby Cinema, 4DX and ScreenX, with bonus footage, an art print and a character button, per the event announcement.
- Rating: PG-13 for “violence/action, bloody images, strong language, sexual references, partial nudity and brief smoking,” per the MPA rating reported in July. Every live-action Street Fighter movie has been PG-13, while Mortal Kombat went R.
- Runtime: 1 hour 59 minutes, per Fandango. That’s long for a fighting-game movie.
- Streaming: Not announced. As a Paramount release it’ll very likely land on Paramount+ eventually, but there’s no date yet.
Trailers
The first look was a teaser that debuted at The Game Awards in December 2025. The full trailer followed in April, and a new one dropped Sep 1 alongside a gimmick we low-key love: a “playable” trailer on YouTube where you hit button prompts while the footage runs. Here’s the official trailer from Paramount’s channel:
And the September trailer, which leans harder into the tournament and the villains:
Every Street Fighter character confirmed, and who plays them
This is a big roster. Here’s every fighter with a confirmed actor, with a source for each.
| Character | Actor | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Ryu | Andrew Koji | Deadline |
| Ken Masters | Noah Centineo | Deadline |
| Chun-Li | Callina Liang | Deadline |
| Blanka | Jason Momoa | Fandango |
| Guile | Cody Rhodes | Deadline |
| Akuma | Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i | Deadline |
| M. Bison | David Dastmalchian | Moviefone |
| Balrog | Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson | Deadline |
| Vega | Orville Peck | Rotten Tomatoes |
| Dhalsim | Vidyut Jammwal | Deadline |
| E. Honda | Hirooki Goto | Deadline |
| Zangief | Olivier Richters | Rotten Tomatoes |
| Cammy | Mel Jarnson | Rotten Tomatoes |
| Juli | Rayna Vallandingham | Rotten Tomatoes |
| Dan Hibiki | Andrew Schulz | Collider |
| Don Sauvage (announcer) | Eric André | Deadline |
The credits also list UFC fighter Alexander Volkanovski and Kyle Mooney in smaller roles. Behind the camera, Sakurai co-wrote the screenplay with T.J. Fixman, and producers include Legendary’s Mary Parent and Capcom’s Takayuki Nakayama. Momoa is a producer too.
What is the Street Fighter movie about?
It’s set in 1993, which is a cute nod to the arcade glory days. The official synopsis has estranged fighters Ryu and Ken pulled back into combat when a mysterious Chun-Li recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament, and there’s a deadly conspiracy underneath it all. So: the actual tournament from the games, with Bison lurking. That already puts it ahead of both earlier live-action attempts.
Sakurai wasn’t the original pick. Talk to Me directors Danny and Michael Philippou were attached first, and Sakurai took over in February 2025. His background is mostly comedy: he spent years directing The Eric Andre Show and made the hidden-camera movie Bad Trip, plus some Twisted Metal episodes. That explains a lot about this cast.
How it stacks up against the old Street Fighter movies
The bar is on the floor, honestly.
- Street Fighter (1994): The Jean-Claude Van Damme one. Critics trashed it, and the Rotten Tomatoes consensus says Raul Julia’s scenery-chewing Bison was the best thing in it. But it made money: $99.4 million worldwide on a $35 million budget. It’s also a cult favorite now, mostly as a “so bad it’s good” watch.
- Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009): The one people forget exists. It has a 3% on Rotten Tomatoes and made just $12.7 million worldwide on a $50 million budget. Brutal.
Neither one really did the tournament, and neither one looked like the games. From the trailers, the new movie is going the other way: Guile’s hair is 100% arcade-accurate, and the fighters throw actual special moves.
The video game movie boom, and the Mortal Kombat II problem
Street Fighter is arriving at a good time for game adaptations. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie became 2026’s first $1 billion movie, and studios are mining every gaming brand they own. If you’re here from the gaming side, our GTA 6 hub covers the other huge release everyone’s counting down to.
The closer comparison is its old arcade rival. Mortal Kombat II opened May 8, 2026 to $38.5 million domestic and finished around $129.6 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. It also got the best reviews of any live-action Mortal Kombat movie. Good, not massive. Boxoffice Pro’s long-range forecast puts Street Fighter’s opening at $30 million to $40 million, right in that same lane.
Let’s be real: this could go either way
We want this to work. A lot of it looks fun. But there are real red flags.
- The stunt casting. Two WWE stars, a New Japan wrestler, a rapper, a country singer, a stand-up comic and Aquaman. Some of it fits: wrestlers are basically playing fighting-game characters for a living already. But it’s a cast built for press tours and trailer moments, and it’s hard to tell yet whether Koji and Liang get enough room to carry the actual story.
- The Dan Hibiki call. Dan has always been written as Japanese and from Hong Kong, and Collider called casting Schulz whitewashing when it was announced. Dan’s a joke character, sure. That doesn’t make it a good look for a franchise that’s always been proudly international.
- The runtime. Nearly two hours for a tournament movie with 15-plus fighters is a lot. The 1994 and 2009 films both collapsed under too much plot. More fighters doesn’t fix that.
- The track record. The franchise has one movie that made money and one that bombed, and both were panned. Sakurai’s comedy background could be exactly what this needs, or it could tip the whole thing into parody.
The playable trailer and the game-accurate costumes show a studio that actually knows the source material. That’s more than Street Fighter has had on screen before. Whether it adds up to a good movie is still the big question.
What’s next
Reviews should land around release week, and our own Street Fighter review goes up after we’ve seen it. The week after, DC’s R-rated horror swing Clayface opens Oct 23, so October is shaping up as a solid month for genre fans.
So who are you most excited (or most worried) to see: Momoa’s Blanka, Reigns’ Akuma, or Dastmalchian’s Bison? Tell us in the comments.
