'Squid Game' and other survival thrillers

Within two weeks of its release, the South Korean series unexpectedly became Netflix's most watched program in at least 90 countries, including the US. A group of 456 people who are deeply in debt are invited to play a series of children's games in order to win a ton of money. But those who lose are killed. The violent, addictive survival drama is part of a film genre with a long tradition.

Some have accused "Squid Game" of plagiarizing the Japanese film "As the Gods Will," which tells a similar story, but with high school students participating in the survival game. Above, director Takashi Miike and actors Hirona Yamazaki and Sota Fukushi show heads of Daruma dolls at a film premiere. Just like in the Korean series, it is a doll who leads a deadly game of Red Light, Green Light.

Kinji Fukasaku's dystopian Japanese thriller also follows a group of high-school students who are forced by a totalitarian government to fight for their survival in an annual "Battle Royale" until a victor emerges. Even though many critics praised the film for reflecting the distressful experience of adolescence, it was banned in several countries due to its extreme violence.

Set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future in the fictional nation of Panem, "The Hunger Games" opposes representatives of the nation's 12 Districts, who have to fight each other to death. Critics pointed out that there were many similarities between the "Hunger Games" films, based on a book series, and the novel and film "Battle Royale," which then became a label for the entire genre.

Also set in a dystopian future, this sci-fi film has been called "The Hunger Games" of 1975. By the year 2018, the world is controlled by corporations. The population is kept distracted by a sport called Rollerball, which combines football, roller derby, motocross and gladiatorial fighting. But the game turns into a carnage to eliminate the star player (James Caan), seen as a threat to the system.

Released just before "Rollerball," this film starring among others, Sylvester Stallone, is also set in a dystopian United States, in the year 2000. The country's totalitarian regime has created a national entertainment event called the Transcontinental Road Race, which has its drivers kill pedestrians for bonus points. The film was remade in 2008, followed by direct-to-video sequels.

This film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger also depicts a dystopian United States. In 2017, a totalitarian regime is in place. Serving as entertainment for the masses is a TV show called "The Running Man," which has convicted criminals run to avoid being killed by professional executioners. A long court case determined it was plagiarized from a 1983 French movie, "Le prix du danger."

That French film was not an original script, but rather based on a short story, "The Prize of Peril," written by US author Robert Sheckley. It had also previously been adapted into a German TV movie, "Das Millionenspiel" (The Game of Millions), praised for anticipating how television would turn to extreme reality shows for ratings. Here candidates hoped to survive to win a million German marks.

In this US horror thriller, 80 Belko Corp employees in Bogotá, Colombia are one day trapped in the company building. There, they hear a voice over an intercom, instructing them to kill a specific number of their own co-workers within certain time limits. The deadly challenge leads the co-workers to create various alliances, until only the strongest person remains alive at the end.

A big game hunter organizes to get a group of passengers from a luxury yacht stranded on a remote island in order to hunt them down. The early US horror movie is based on a highly influential short story by Richard Connell from 1924, which went on to inspire many other films of different genres, such as "A Game of Death" (1945), "Run for the Sun" (1956) or "The Pest" (1997).