10 More Most Confusing Movie Moments Nobody Understands

Typically, in any dystopian story there has to be a huge amount of world building and exposition to set the scene of a world very different to what the audience has seen before. Rollerball however, chose to go a different route, and offered very little explanation for anything at all.

The James Caan-led 1975 movie is based in such a world where the game of Rollerball has been designed as something of an oppressive tool, to demonstrate the futility of individual effort against the Energy Corporation. Naturally, when Caan's Jonathan E got so good at the game that he achieved something of a legendary status across the world, he had to be stopped.

The narrative largely surrounds the conspiracy to kick Jonathan out of the game, without ever truly delving into the specifics of the rules themselves. There are hints of roller derby in there, but with several players on motorcycles in what is essentially just a bloodbath. Even Jonathan Houseman's Mr. Bartholomew, Chairman of the villainous Energy Corporation describes the rules as odd, and that's before they change later in the movie.

There are three games of Rollerball shown throughout the film, with E's Houston taking on Madrid, Tokyo, and finally New York, which gives a lot of screen time to a game that the writing has gone to surprisingly little effort to explain.

Not that it stops any of those scenes from being very, very cool, though.