Rollerball (1975)

Rollerball" posits a dystopian future in the year 2018 in which war has been replaced by the titular game, a gladiatorial spectacle of violence that helps keep the global populace entertained and anesthetized. Director Norman Jewison ("In the Heat of the Night") and writer William Harrison further give us an athletic champion, Jonathan E. (James Caan, "Misery"), whose individual expertise defeats the worldwide corporate leadership's design: to emphasize the futility of individual effort. Corporate bigwigs (icily incarnated by John Houseman, "Bright Lights, Big City") need Jonathan to retire, but Jonathan begins to have his own dangerous ideas in this fast-hitting, action-packed drama.