The Best Fantasy Movies

A good fantasy movie will transport you to a whole other world; whether it’s a universe where knights battle giant wood creatures or one where gods of mythology walk among us. A great fantasy movie, however, will vividly color the place it creates by contrasting it with a world more similar to our own, thereby highlighting issues in our own society. After all, if we lived on a perfect planet, there would be no need to curl up in bed and watch movies in order to escape, right? All movies are a form of escapism, and therefore make-believe in and of themselves, but not all movies are pure fantasy movies. For this list, we are focused on the movies that rely on enchanted forests, epic quests, or unexplained, unnatural events to provide that escape.

You’ll notice that a lot of the fantasy movies released in the '80s or '90s take advantage of that era’s fascination with technology that was just out of their reach, creating elaborate creatures and set designs that tend to fall flat for modern viewers used to 3D and HD (think: the original Star Wars). Even though the special effects are sometimes laughable, all of the older films on this list are carried by their original, meaningful plots, and performances.

Fantasy is a genre that is often dominated by foreign films. There isn’t a clear-cut explanation for this, except perhaps that being away from Hollywood and all the glamor that comes with it might open up filmmakers and directors to new ways of telling stories. Finally, although fantasy is often associated with talking creatures or something to that effect, there are many movies that don’t rely on that kind of magic, and focus instead on something seemingly impossible to magnify the constraints or limitations of our measly human lives on Earth. Here are the best fantasy movies to watch right now.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

​Stars: Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, and Hitoshi Takagi

Kanye West has been extremely vocal in the past about his love for Akira, the '80s sci-fi anime film that inspired the video for his music video for "Stronger." The animator of that movie, Makiko Futaki, was hugely influential and stamped her mark on all your Studio Ghlibi favorites; My Neighbor Totoro is one of the best examples of the fantastical world that came out of that creative powerhouse. Set in rural Japan in the late 1940s, My Neighbor Totoro tells the story of two young sisters who make friends with the strange yet friendly creatures living in the woods near their homes. This one is truly iconic.

Director: Terry Gilliam

Stars: John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Jonathan Pryce, Uma Thurman

This one is a trip and a half. If you’ve seen Terry Gilliam’s gritty Brazil, then you might have an idea of the director’s style; we’re talking strange, larger than life characters enjoying loopy, escapist storylines. Gilliam himself has called Baron Munchausen, the protagonist of this story, “the greatest liar in the world,” but in reality he is a fictional 18th century British baron who spent his days spinning impossible, clearly made up tales of battle against the Ottoman Empire. This is a great fantasy movie because it delights in its physically impossible storylines, but also approaches a more psychologically touching area when you consider just how sad this Baron must be to make up such insane tales.

Director: Gary Ross

Stars: Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy

You know how (white) girls will post a black and white '50s-era photo on the 'gram of two smiling ~lovebirds~ sharing a milkshake with two striped straws and be all like, “I was born in the wrong era! I wish we could do this nowadays!” Well, Becky, life was probably hell if you were anything but a white heterosexual man in those days, and it’s not like milkshakes are illegal or anything... but, yeah, sure. Well, imagine if one day Becky woke up in the 1950s and had to face that institutional racism and searing sexism all by her damn self? That’s basically what Pleasantville is about: Two siblings, played by Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon when they were very young, somehow step through their television screens and end up in a picture perfect suburban town in the 1950s. It’s a must-watch, if only to comment on Becky’s photo and be able to tell her that “perfect” doesn’t really exist, no matter the calendar year.

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Stars: Gunnar Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot, Nils Poppe, Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Inga Landgré

What do you think happens when you die? I don’t mean in a religious sense. Like, what literally happens the moment you take your last breath? Whatever you imagine, I will bet money you didn’t guess that you’d play a casual game of chess with Death himself. (Herself? #feminism) But that’s what happens in this world-renowned movie: At the moment of his passing, a medieval knight sits down to try to checkmate Death. Weird, sure, but this is also the movie that really introduced Ingmar Bergman to the world, making it a must-watch for any film buff with half a brain.

Director: Rob Reiner

Stars: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Wallace Shawn

A person’s life can be defined by two time periods: before they watched The Princess Bride and after. The most epic line in the entire movie (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”), is the original gamechanger. But in all seriousness, this is that classic “poor worker falls in love with a princess and must save her from the horrible knight who wants to marry her” type of plot, but it still manages to be entirely engaging. I mean, the princess’ name is Buttercup, and Westley, the farm boy, is the one who has to save her from Prince Humperdinck. You can’t make this stuff up!

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Stars: Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Ariadna Gil

Set in Spain just after the Spanish Civil War, Pan’s Labyrinth is the story of Ofelia and her mysterious, often dangerous quest for immortality. Pan, a half-man, half-goat, fairy-like creature, appears to her one day and guides her through three different missions before she can reclaim her post as an important, ancient, and immortal princess. All the while Pan’s mother is growing ill, and her evil stepfather attempts to squash a military uprising; it’s often hard to tell whether Pan’s fantastical journey or her reality is more terrifying. Pan’s Labyrinth is very dark both aesthetically and narratively, and is often regarded as a relatively adult film.

Director: Kenji Mizoguchi

Stars: Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Kinuyo Tanaka

In 1776, when America was a newborn baby, Japanese author Ueda Akinari had already published a set of nine supernatural stories. Centuries later, two of these stories became the basis for a movie of the same name. In the movie, two couples from poor, peasant backgrounds face terrible, sometimes inexplicable tragedies at the hands of fellow humans, as well as mysterious ghosts. Critics have crowned it one of the greatest—if not the greatest—Japanese movies of all time because of how it deals with questions of morality, family, and the fate of women in Japanese society.

Director: Peter Jackson

Stars: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin

The blinding success of this franchise means it requires very little introduction. It really was a huge deal, and is the most popular—​if not the most successful—​fantasy franchise in recent years. Frodo Baggins’ quest to destroy the Ring is iconic partly because of how famous it was, but also because it embodies everything that fantasy should: strange mythical creatures (such as fairies), kings, and legendary warriors entering epic, magical battles all in the name of one shared goal.

Director: Harold Ramis

Stars: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott

Not all fantasy movies have to be scary or involve nonhuman creatures with magical powers! In fact, is we broaden the definition of fantasy film to simply include events that revolve around outlandish, wondrous plots, then Groundhog Day is definitely among the greatest. When a newscaster is forced into a time loop and must live out the exact same day, every single day, he is forced to examine what life is actually for. What is fairly intense psychological trauma is tempered by Bill Murray’s charming performance, allowing the movie to breathe and become funny at parts, relatable at others, and maybe even thought-inducing, if you’re in the mood for that.

Director: Kenneth Branagh

​Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Colm Feore

Of all the movies in the Marvel universe and their unlikely storylines, Thor is the best fantasy film, because it employs real Norse mythology to craft a modern superhero blockbuster, perfectly bridging the gap between celebrating history and the Hollywood hunger for profit.