Two of Rockstar’s biggest franchises, Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption, draw heavily from movies. The GTA games are akin to action-packed crime epics about cops and robbers, while the Red Dead games are similar to revisionist westerns that deconstruct the classic genre.
Naturally, the designers and writers of these games have been influenced by a ton of different movies. Certain characters, plot points, and visual stylings in the GTA franchise were borrowed from action thrillers and gangster movies, while the tone and aesthetic of the Red Dead games were inspired by a very specific subcategory of western films.
10 GTA: Heat
The most obvious movie reference in GTA is Michael Mann’s Heat. If Rockstar never makes a live-action GTA movie, Heat makes for a pretty good substitute.
“Three Leaf Clover,” the bank heist mission from GTA IV, is taken straight from the bank heist scene in Heat, complete with the suits and balaclavas. When it comes to looking for inspiration, GTA can do much worse than Heat.
9 RDR: Dollars Trilogy
Bill Elm and Woody Jackson worked for over a year on the original score for Red Dead Redemption and researched music from other western stories for inspiration. They ended up being heavily influenced by Ennio Morricone’s iconic music from the Dollars trilogy.
Directed by Sergio Leone, the Dollars trilogy – consisting of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – pioneered the spaghetti western subgenre and made Clint Eastwood a star.
8 GTA: Menace II Society
The biggest influence on the plot and setting of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is Menace II Society, one of the defining entries in the lexicon of “hood” movies.
Several characters in San Andreas’ Grove Street Family appear to have been directly based on the O-Dog character from Menace II Society, while the line “I feel sorry for your dad” is lifted straight from Menace, used in a similar context.
7 RDR: The Wild Bunch
Since Red Dead Redemption takes place in 1911 and most western fiction is set between 1840 and 1880, the design team decided that the theme of the game would be the death of the Old West as opposed to the myths of the Old West peddled by classic John Wayne movies.
One of the biggest influences on this theme was 1969’s The Wild Bunch, a blood-drenched western epic helmed by the great Sam Peckinpah, complete with all the director’s usual bleak, genre-dismantling violence.
6 GTA: Scarface
The influence of Brian De Palma’s flashy ‘80s crime epic Scarface can be seen all over Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, whose titular setting was based on Scarface’s Miami setting.
The final mission in Vice City, “Keep Your Friends Close,” in which the player defeats their closest rival on the fancy staircase of the Vercetti Estate, was lifted directly from the final scene of Scarface. The name of the mission also references a quote from The Godfather, another cinematic influence on the GTA franchise.
5 RDR: High Plains Drifter
One of Clint Eastwood’s darker and lesser-known westerns, High Plains Drifter revolves around a mysterious drifter who saves a mining town from corruption.
It’s never revealed who the drifter is, but it’s implied that he’s the Devil, or the Angel of Death, or the ghost of Marshal Duncan – either way, it’s at least a little supernatural, and very unconventional for a western. Rockstar specifically recommended High Plains Drifter in the lead up to Red Dead Redemption's release.
4 GTA: The French Connection
The gritty, grounded visual style of William Friedkin’s ‘70s crime thriller The French Connection had a huge influence on the muted look of Grand Theft Auto IV. The game even homages the movie’s title with the mission name “The Puerto Rican Connection.”
Plus, the final mission of GTA IV is an obvious homage to the iconic car chase from The French Connection, as Niko Bellic pursues an enemy in an overground subway train.
3 RDR: The Proposition
The uncompromising violence and dark tone of the Red Dead games were influenced by John Hillcoat’s The Proposition. Instead of taking place in the American West, The Proposition is set against the Australian outback in the 1880s, using the familiar tropes of American westerns to explore an ugly chapter in Australian history.
There are some scenes in The Proposition that are difficult to watch – like when brutal punishment is doled out with a cat o’ nine tails – but it’s a movie that dares the viewer to look away.
2 GTA: Goodfellas
The GTA team must be big fans of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. For starters, they cast the movie’s star Ray Liotta to play the lead role in Vice City. The mafia storyline of GTA III also borrows a lot of gangland antics from Goodfellas.
Henry Hill’s lifelong quest to get “made” (which he can’t, because he’s not 100% Italian) is replicated in Claude’s quest to become a made man in GTA III.
1 RDR: Unforgiven
Clint Eastwood bid farewell to the western genre with Unforgiven, a movie that both celebrates the genre that made Eastwood a star and deconstructs its myths.
The grit of Unforgiven can be seen all over the Red Dead games. Eastwood stars as William Munny, an ex-gunslinger who’s pulled out of his peaceful retirement as a pig farmer to kill two cowboys who attacked and scarred a prostitute.