I can 100% understand why this became a classic and why it birthed an entire genre. I absolutely loved it and I felt so much tension from the start of the game to the end.

I think what this film does really well is characterization; there are 40+ students and the film manages to humanize all of them in one or two scenes. I think the main characters were actually pretty bland compared to some of the side character so I was glad that we got different perspectives. In that sense, the film feels almost like an anthology of different stories.

There's some iffiness around how the law was passed and how things work in this world, and also around some plot points that were annoying or simply triggered by stupid decision-making.

I think the acting in some of the scenes were also a little stiff — especially in some death scenes — but overall this is a film that holds up.

I know there are a bunch of comparisons to Hunger Games which took inspiration from this, and as a baby of the dystopian YA era I have to make a comparison too. In one quick sentence, it's this: Battle Royale is better with its characters, Hunger Games is better with its world-building.