Fantasy movies, formerly supposed to be the domain of those people seen dueling with plastic swords in the park, are now big business, thanks to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Game of Thrones, and, of course, the omnipresent Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s easy to understand why consumers want to be transported to a different time and place – just look at cable news or your Twitter… sorry, X feed. Movies are designed to be escapist, and no genre does a greater job of moving us away from the present than fantasy.
However, for our list of the greatest fantasy movies of all time, we’re using a broader meaning of the term than is commonly employed. Sure, there are plenty of superhero movies and sword-and-dwarf epics and adventures set in strange lands. However, there are films that suggest that magic and mystery may be discovered right here on Earth, and that it is accessible to even the most skeptical adults and children. All you have to do is go out and look for it.
The Best Fantasy Movies:
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Peter Jackson took fantasy movies into the digital age with his epic, globe-spanning adaptation of JRR Tolkein’s genre-defining trilogy, managing to make it at least semi-cool in the process.
It may lack the blood and thunder of later installments, but the first ‘Rings’ film remains our favorite: it has the most direct narrative – essentially a road movie from the rustic middle-English hush of the Shire to the foreboding shores of the Anduin – and the sweetest character moments, from Bilbo’s sad departure to Boromir’s sacrificial end. And it is for this reason that Jackson’s ‘Rings’ films work and will continue to thrill audiences for centuries to come: the characters are just as crucial as the visual effects. A basic technique, admittedly, but a blindingly effective one.
The series’ greatest showdown, as Gandalf confronts the fiery Balrog on the bridge of Khazad-Dum. ‘You! Shall! Not! Pass!’
2. King Kong (1933)
What else can be said about ‘King Kong’? As Peter Jackson demonstrated a few years ago, not much. The imperialist creature film by Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack is still a dramatic and melancholy story about why the Empire State Building is such a horrific tourist trap.
‘Oh no, it wasn’t the planes,’ says the terrible finale. ‘Beauty destroyed the beast.’
3. Ugetsu Monogatari (1953)
One of the finest fantasy movies ever told on film, Kenji Mizoguchi’s wonderfully macabre fable about two greedy peasants attempting to profit from their country’s civil war becomes increasingly compelling as it gradually bleeds into the otherworldly. A sense of the afterlife pervades the film as one of the guys falls in love with a mystery noblewoman, abandoning both his senses and his family in one fell swoop.
A lakeside picnic with a woman as creepy as the mist that creeps over the river is a magical moment.
4.La Belle et la Bête (1946)
The allure of ‘La Belle et la Bête’ still casts a spell over 70 years after its publication. In his interpretation of the story, poet-turned-director Jean Cocteau produced hallucinogenic reveries, most notably the phantom arms emerging through the walls of the Beast’s castle to lift the candelabras illuminating Belle’s path.
Belle sheds glittering diamond tears in a magical moment.
5.The Dark Crystal (1982)
This haunting and innovative film revealed the dark side of ‘The Muppets’ ringmaster Jim Henson, who created a gothic realm of magic and peril inspired in part by the horror of Grimm fairytales. Jen, a Gelfling, is tasked with fulfilling a prophecy and defeating the aging, decaying Skeksis in favor of the softer, wiser Mystics. The film’s character design is as impressive as its faith in children’s creativity.
When the Mystics and Skeksis unite in a cosmic, psychedelic transforming orgy.
6. A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
At first glance, Powell and Pressburger’s towering film appears to be a wartime romance, which it is. However, when David Niven’s doomed RAF pilot crashes while conversing with an American radio operator (June Carter), he finds himself inside the pearly gates, introducing the film’s twin locales, earth and heaven. In the latter, a celestial court must decide whether to spare Niven’s pilot, and the film’s fantastical idea taps into a postwar spirit of inquiry into how to best administer our lives.
The glittering staircases that climb to the heavens are a magical moment.
7.The Red Shoes (1948)
The second picture on our list by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger isn’t strictly one of those fantasy movies. It tells the story of a prima ballerina (Moira Shearer) and the power-mad Svengali (Anton Walbrook) who loves and exploits her in the real world. When the curtains rise and the ballet begins, the film devolves into a dizzying world of make-believe, with Powell at the pinnacle of his talents, combining cinema, music, performance, art, clothing, and animation into a frenzied tornado of sound and color.
The sorrowful climax, in which the performers reproduce the titular ballet without their star dancer, leaving only an empty space where she should have been, is a magical moment.
8.The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The tap-tap-tap of the ruby slippers, the yellow brick road in dazzling Technicolor, and a witch the color of alien snot. The greatest parts of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ are woozy and creepy, like dream memories. The film’s enduring power may be due to the very genuine emotions that drive the fantasy: the pull for a youngster between home and the terrors and thrills of the great world outside.
Magical moment: The Wicked Witch of the West instructs the winged monkeys to take flight. ‘Fly my beauties!’
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Written by: Anshika Patra
