Hollywood has always loved the fantasy genre. In fact, some of the first movies involved monsters, swords, and magic. Even before the advent of sound it was easy to convey those classic themes on film. Of course, it also didn't take the movie industry long to start adapting iconic fantasy novels and stories, and that's when the genre really exploded.
One of the things that sets fantasy movies apart from some of their closest relatives-- like sci-fi, superhero movies, and animation-- is that they tend to get more critical recognition, and they certainly earn more awards. Whereas genre films are often written off as fun, light, popcorn fare, fantasy films seem to get a lot more genuine respect and acclaim. At least, when they are done well, that is. Fantasy is also capable of going very wrong, and few bad movies are worse than bad fantasy movies.
It's worth giving you advanced warning that this list is a bit heavy on franchises-- two in particular. But there was no way around that if we were to stay honest to the theme of the list, as those two franchises are simply among the best-reviewed franchises in movie history, fantasy or otherwise. That said, you'll also find that there is a decent amount of variety on this list, from the traditional magic and dragons type of fantasy to some much more unorthodox examples of the genre.
Here are the 20 Best Fantasy Movies Ever Made, According To Rotten Tomatoes (And 5 Stuck With 0%).
Best: Life Of Pi (87%)
The original Life of Pi novel is one of those books that people claimed was "unfilmable," which Hollywood loves to take as a challenge. Sometimes it blows up in the filmmaker's face-- and other times, we get a brilliant film like Life of Pi.
After a few other big-name directors were attached to and subsequently exited the project, Ang Lee stepped up to helm the effects-heavy film that takes place almost entirely on a boat with a single human actor and various animals both real and fabricated. The movie is absolutely captivating throughout, right up to the gut-punch ending that really solidifies its place as a fantasy movie.
Best: Pete's Dragon (87%)
No matter how you may personally feel about Disney's current push to remake its classic animated films in live action, it's a trend that isn't going away anytime soon as they have comprised some of the highest-grossing movies of all time. Fortunately, most of these remakes have been quite good-- and in some cases, maybe even surpassed their originals.
While the animated Pete's Dragon is an indisputable classic, it was bested by this 2016 remake starring Robert Redford and Bryce Dallas Howard.
It's not easy to make a live-action movie featuring a giant furry dragon that doesn't feel completely ridiculous, but the subtle direction of David Lowery (Ain't Them Bodies Saints) accomplishes exactly that.
Best: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (88%)
While none of the Harry Potter movies have gotten a particular poor critical reception, it wasn't until the third movie that the film franchise started to earn genuine acclaim. Much of that had to do with the series beginning to take on a darker, more mature tone around that time, which continued on through fourth installment Goblet of Fire.
Goblet of Fire is the first Harry Potter film to fully embrace its main characters as teenagers.
Stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint handled this transition flawlessly. If there was any lingering fear that they weren't cut out for the franchise's maturing direction, that was gone after this movie.
Best: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (89%)
When Gene Wilder passed away in 2016, most tributes to him were fronted with a picture of the actor as Willy Wonka. While Wilder was in a number of classic films in his legendary career, he will always be best remembered in the titular role of the eccentric candy company owner who seemingly loves children but is also quick to teach them very extreme lessons.
When working on the Johnny Depp-starring remake, Tim Burton had harsh words for the original film, which differs greatly from the tone of the book, and was proud of the fact that his movie was going to be different. However most of us love the original and that's the one that'll live on for another 50 years.
0%: The Crow: Wicked Prayer
It's ironic that the original The Crow is a story about a man who returns from the afterlife to right various wrongs, since the franchise that has spawned from it has only proven that The Crow should've stayed resting peacefully after the original installment.
Each and every Crow sequel-- and we're currently at three, plus a short-lived TV series-- has seemingly been worse than the last, and has only served to tarnish the original's legacy. The latest, Wicked Prayer-- starring Edward Furlong, Tara Reid, David Boreanaz, and Dennis Hopper-- couldn't even manage more than a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. It's quite the plummet from the 81% that the first movie earned.
Best: Matilda (90%)
While he is best known for his acting roles, Danny DeVito has been just as big a force behind the camera over his 40+ year career. In addition to being a producer on such noteworthy films as Pulp Fiction and Erin Brokovich, DeVito has also directed eight films, including 1996's Matilda.
Starring in Matilda is actress Mara Wilson, who was seemingly in all of the family movies you loved in the mid-1990s.
Wilson is wonderfully charming in the role based on the book of the same name-- one of three Roald Dahl adaptations on this list-- in a movie that many former kids still love to this day.
Best: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (91%)
As we mentioned before, this is the first Harry Potter movie that really started to get critics' attentio, proving the series wouldn't be dismissed as disposable kids' fantasy fare. Directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men), Prisoner of Azkaban still looks and feels unlike any other Harry Potter movie, which is exactly why it remains many fans' favorite cinematic installment of the franchise.
The introduction of Gary Oldman's Sirius Black is also a pretty big reason why Prisoner of Azkaban is a standout Harry Potter film, adding yet another respected A-lister to an already impressive collection of veteran actors.
Best: Edward Scissorhands (91%)
If you grew up in the late '80s to early '90s, and you were even the slightest bit off-kilter of a child, then you were most likely a Tim Burton fan. Even if his directorial efforts over the last couple decades haven't matched his creative peak, when you're responsible for movies like Beetlejuice, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, and the Michael Keaton Batman movies, your legacy is pretty well secure.
In the first of nine films they would eventually collaborate on, Tim Burton directed Johnny Depp in the unorthodox love story Edward Scissorhands in 1990.
It also featured standout performances from Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, and one of the final appearances by legend Vincent Price.
Best: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (91%)
It was seen as a huge gamble at the time: to trust a fairly unknown director with steering a massive, multi-year, multi-film attempt at adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's series of classic fantasy novels starring a cast with relatively few A-listers.
Needless to say, it paid off for just about everyone involved, as the Lord of the Rings film franchise has earned nearly $3 billion worldwid-- without even including the tally of the Hobbit films. While Fellowship of the Ring is the weakest of the bunch due to all of the necessary character set up and world building it has to do, it is still one of the highest-grossing and best-reviewed movies of all time.
0%: Highlander 2: The Quickening
While the original Highlander movie wasn't a critical darling and barely turned a profit at the box office, it quickly became a cult hit that found an enthusiastic fanbase. Unfortunately, achieving that status also led to a sequel that is among the poorest-received theatrical films in history.
In addition to having one of the worst subtitles ever, Highlander II: The Quickening does just about everything a movie could possibly do wrong.
The problems that came with making this movie are legendary.
Best: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (92%)
The sole American member of the legendary Monty Python comedy troupe wasn't seen on screen a ton in their TV series or films, but Terry Gilliam's interstitial animations helped to create a unique visual language for the group and led to him finding success as a visionary film director.
Gilliam left a unique stamp on Hollywood in the 1980s in particular, including his self-described "Trilogy of Imagination" that included The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Starring fellow Python Eric Idle as well as a young Uma Thurman and featuring an extremely inventive Robin Williams cameo, Munchuasen is a visual treat the likes of which nobody but Terry Gilliam could've possibly been responsible for.
Best: Enchanted (93%)
Nobody quite knew what to make of Enchanted when it was first announced: a live-action movie about a Disney princess who finds herself transported into the harsh, ugly "real world." Almost everyone was surprised by how hilarious and charming the movie ended up being, due in large part to the spot-on performances of Amy Adams and James Marsden as misplaced cartoon characters in real New York City.
Most surprising of all are Enchanted's songs and dance numbers, which easily stand among some of the best in Disney history.
In fact, three of the five nominees for Best Original Song at the 80th Academy Awards were songs from Enchanted.
Best: Time Bandits (93%)
The other fantasy movie in Terry Gilliam's "Trilogy of Imagination"-- the third branch is sci-fi classic Brazil-- Time Bandits was the only of the three to actually be measurable as a box office hit.
Part of that could've been due to the cast list, headed up by John Cleese-- arguably the most famous Monty Python member-- and also starring Sean Connery and Shelley Duvall as well as frequent Gilliam collaborators like Ian Holm and Katherine Helmond. It also probably helped that the movie was co-written with Gilliam by another Python, Michael Palin, making for an unusually Python-heavy Terry Gilliam film.
Best: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (93%)
According to reviews, The Lord of the Rings finale film The Return of the King is the second-best movie of the trilogy-- but the Lord of the Rings trilogy basically exists as a single, unified whole and each film needs the other two, so picking which one is the best is just a matter of nitpicking.
The film swept the Oscars, winning all of its 11 nominations.
Besides not having something as epic as the battle at Helm's Deep, Return of the King is often derided for its protracted denouement, where one ending seems to roll into another and then another. You can't exactly wrap up such an epic trilogy of movies with an ending that only lasts a couple of minutes.
0%: Pinocchio
While Roberto Benigni had been around for awhile by the time he won his Oscar for Life is Beautiful, that film really broke him through to the global audience. It also gave him the clout to make whatever vanity projects he wanted, and used that creative freedom to make this.
It's hard to imagine what other angles are left to take on the classic book The Adventures of Pinocchio, especially after the masterpiece Disney animated version, but people keep taking their own crack at it. Benigni's 2002 effort, which he directed, wrote, and starred in, is objectively the worst adaptation of the bunch.
Best: Pan's Labyrinth (95%)
Guillermo del Toro doesn't get enough credit for a lot of things that he has done, but what he probably deserves the most respect for is in his being one of the few directors who actively works to keep genuine, classic fantasy alive in Hollywood at a time when many filmmakers seem to be actively moving away from it.
The Shape of Water might be del Toro's most acclaimed film overall, but it's easy to make the case that his actual best movie remains Pan's Labyrinth.
Here is one case where Rotten Tomatoes' consensus sums things up perfectly: "Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups."
Best: The Jungle Book (95%)
One person who doesn't get enough credit for the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Jon Favreau. He played a large part in setting the tone for that world via his directing of the first two Iron Man movies. It seemed as though his directorial exit from the MCU was entirely of his own choosing, wanting to have the freedom to work on different types of films.
Not all of Favreau's non-MCU directorial efforts have been stellar, but he is also responsible for the wonderful live-action remake of Disney's The Jungle Book. Given that movie's critical reception and nearly $1 billion haul, he definitely knows how to helm non-superhero blockbusters.
Best: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows - Part 2 (96%)
Harry Potter fans might have been a bit worried that the film franchise was going to end on a sour note after the relatively poor critical reception of Deathly Hollows - Part 1, receiving a series-low 79% Rotten Tomatoes score. The criticism centered on it feeling too much like a mere prologue to the epic climax that was to occur in Part 2.
Deathly Hallows - Part 2 contained everything that fans wanted out of the final installment of the franchise.
It bounced back and earning the best reviews of the entire Harry Potter film series.
Best: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (96%)
It's fairly common for the second installment in a pre-established trilogy ends up becoming the fan favorite. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it-- the boring set-up of the first movie is out of the way, and with a third movie ahead that will wrap things up, the second installment can end on a more interesting, darker note.
The Two Towers is one of the best examples of this trend, perhaps with only The Empire Strikes Back to challenge it. Of all the three-plus hour Lord of the Rings films, Two Towers definitely flies by the fastest and is the one that is easiest to watch multiple times.
0%: Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour
Have you ever heard of the Sarah Landon Mysteries series? No? That's because it ground to a halt after just a single movie installment, the absolutely awful 2007 film Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour.
That anyone thought this could launch entire series indicates some seriously misplaced ambition.
With a writer/director team and actors who are all so obscure that their names probably don't even show up as clickable links on the movie's Wikipedia page-- and most of which have the last name "Comrie" for some reason-- the cast and crew of Paranormal Hour are as forgettable as the movie itself.