Fantasy has been one of the most beloved movie genres ever since its inception. Ever since the work of artists like Georges Méliès, lauded as the father of fantasy cinema, the genre has seen great development over the decades. With its use of complex magic systems, mythical creatures, and inventive magical concepts, fantasy can delight and shock, bringing audiences to new worlds and drawing powerful parallels to the real one.
There are many ways to classify fantasy, but the most popular classify it into two categories: “Low fantasy” and “High fantasy.” Whereas high fantasy brings its fantastical elements (such as magic and fictional creatures) to a parallel world, low fantasy places them in everyday situations, quite literally bringing fantasy to the real world. From the iconic, like the Harry Potter franchise, to the underappreciated, like Wings of Desire, low fantasy has a kind of charm that no other subgenre of fantasy can replicate.
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‘A Matter of Life and Death’ (1946)
David Nevan as Peter David Carter wearing an army uniform in A Matter of Life and DeathImage via Eagle-Lion Films
Originally released in the United States as Stairway to Heaven, the British romance drama A Matter of Life and Death is nothing short of one of the best fantasy movies of all time. Directed, written, and produced by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, it’s a delectably creative and exciting fantasy gem unlike any other the genre has ever produced.
Blending color and black-and-white to emphasize the difference between the real world and a fantastical one wasn’t unheard of in 1946, but A Matter of Life and Death does something refreshingly different by making Earth the one that’s in gorgeous three-strip Technicolor and the afterlife the one that’s in black-and-white. This is but one of the reasons why this beautiful romance drama, one of the most dazzling fantasy films of the 1940s, is such a masterpiece.
14
‘Song of the Sea’ (2014)
The sea calls.Image via GKIDS
Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon has been making some of the greatest animated fantasy movies of modern times since 2009. Their second-ever feature film was Tomm Moore‘s Song of the Sea, which is far and away one of the best animated fantasy movies the big screen has ever seen. Perfect for kids, families, and adults alike, it’s the sort of pure movie magic that’s humanly impossible to resist.
Heavily inspired by Irish folklore, this impressively animated little gem is a profoundly hard-hitting tale about grief, family, and all the reasons why humanity needs pain in order to feel truly alive. These are complicated themes for such a cutesy-looking family film, but it’s precisely that emotional maturity which Song of the Sea hides under its surface that makes it a must-see.
13
‘The Fall’ (2006)
Image via Roadside Attractions
Directed by Tarsem Singh, The Fall is one of those R-rated fantasy movies that forever changed the genre. Though its botched distribution strategy and the polarized critical reception that it drew guaranteed its becoming one of the most notorious fantasy film flops of the 2000s, it has since become one of the decade’s most widely beloved low fantasy cult classics.
All in all, The Fall is low fantasy at its most delectably artsy and surreal: visually striking, wonderfully imaginative and dreamlike, and largely reliant on jaw-dropping on-location shooting over cheap visual effects. Couple that with an emotionally stirring meta-narrative about the act of storytelling itself, and you get what’s one of the most essential fantasy cult classics of the 21st century so far.
12
‘Army of Darkness’ (1992)
Ash (Bruce Campbell) listening to the words he has to remember – “Klaatu Barada Nikto” – in ‘Army of Darkness’Image via Universal Pictures
Horror lovers and fans of campy movies will find the perfect marriage of both in Sam Raimi’s 1992 classic Army of Darkness, the third installment in Sam Raimi‘s The Evil Dead trilogy. It also happens to be a dark fantasy film, where Ash is transported to the year 1300 and must retrieve the Necronomicon and battle his way back home.
By far the most absurd, outlandish, and, arguably, funniest of the three installments, Army of Darkness sees Raimi at his Raimi-est. In many ways, Army of Darkness is a hilarious satire of big fantasy blockbusters and traditional horror movies. It’s an experience that’s vastly different from its two darker, gorier, scarier predecessors, but in a delightfully fun way.
11
‘My Neighbor Totoro’ (1988)
Image via Toho
Known for his ability to create immersive, enchanting, fantastical worlds that anyone would love to visit, Hayao Miyazaki has dominated the modern anime industry for years. My Neighbor Totoro is among his most wholesome and highly acclaimed works, following two girls who move to the country to be closer to their ailing mother, where they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live there.
Funny, sweet, and touching, My Neighbor Totoro is simply humanly impossible to hate. It exudes magic and wonder as only the best family fantasy movies can, and the fact that it all happens in the scenic Japanese countryside makes it all the more delightful. With some fun interactions with the real world, such as a big chubby creature standing under the rain with an umbrella at a bus stop, Totoro is a masterclass in low fantasy done right.
10
‘The Green Mile’ (1999)
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
Doubtless one of the best adaptations of Stephen King’s work, Frank Darabont‘s The Green Mile is one of the most singular and moving prison movies ever made. Set on death row in a Southern jail, it follows the lead guard who realizes a gentle giant awaiting his execution has the mysterious power to heal people. Michael Clarke Duncan is magnificent in the role that gave him his only Academy Award nomination, and Darabont – who also directed The Shawshank Redemption, another top-tier adaptation of a Stephen King story set in prison – does a beautiful job behind the camera.
The Green Mile is a tearjerker like few others, with potent social commentary on prejudice and racism and beautiful themes of spirituality, magic, and healing. Its fantasy elements are simultaneously the foundation of the story and a subtle detail to boost the power of its deeper message, which is precisely what low fantasy is all about.
9
‘Wings of Desire’ (1987)
A man stands on the ledge of a high rise building with transparent wings behind him in Wings Of Desire.Image via Orion Classics
Known for his austere, almost poetic approach to filmmaking, Wim Wenders has made some really magical movies, even those that aren’t fantasy. One of his most acclaimed works is the criminally underrated Wings of Desire, a slow-burn low fantasy drama about an angel who, tired of merely overseeing human activity in Berlin, longs for the pleasures of physical existence when he falls in love with a mortal.
Poignantly romantic and philosophically profound, Wings of Desire has some of the most beautifully composed scenes of any ’80s film and two of the best angel characters in media.Wings of Desire is an arthouse film that requires patience and attention. However, audiences willing to grant them will be graced with one of the most beautiful fantasy movies they’ll ever see.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
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How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
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What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
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‘The Tale of the Princess Kaguya’ (2013)
Image via Toho
Though he’s the face of Ghibli — and arguably contemporary Japanese cinema in general — Miyazaki isn’t the only exceptional Japanese filmmaker. Isao Takahata has made some of the most bewitching animated films of all time, including the enrapturing The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. It’s about an old bamboo cutter and his wife discovering a tiny girl in a shining bamboo stalk, who they raise as their child as she rapidly grows.
Set during Japan’s Heian period, the film is based on an iconic piece of Japanese folklore. It’s extremely easy to get emotionally invested in the story and characters, following a deeply moving story of womanhood and parenthood that makes perfect use of its fantastical elements and historical setting.
7
‘Princess Mononoke’ (1997)
San (a.k.a. Princess Mononoke) and her wolf friend from the Studio Ghibli film Princess MononokeImage via Studio Ghibli
Princess Mononoke is a surprisingly mature and violent action fantasy drama about a confident young warrior who, on a journey to protect his village from a demon, finds himself in the midst of a war between a mining colony and the forest gods. Miyazaki’s exploration of the eternal humans-versus-nature conflict and how harmony can be found within is a film that has aged like fine wine.
Although Princess Mononoke was set up for failure in the US, it became an international success. Visually striking and with a timeless story, Princess Mononoke offers as many constant thrills as it does thoughtful scenes of world-building. Its story is set in the late Muromachi period of Japan’s history, introducing fantasy elements like gods, demons, and spirits. A fascinating slice of history with its director’s signature magic touch, Mononoke is a must-see for Japanese history buffs, low fantasy fans, and animation lovers.
6
‘Harry Potter’ Franchise
Boats arriving at Hogwarts in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s StoneImage via Warner Bros. Pictures
Entering a hidden platform through a wall in King’s Cross Station; driving a flying car through the skies of the Scottish Highlands; going down to the Ministry of Magic through a London phone box. These are some of the magical things that only low fantasy can offer, and the Harry Pottermovies make the best use of them. Taking place over seven years, the eight movies follow the adventures of a trio of young sorcerer friends.
Harry Potter is one of the most popular fantasy franchises of all time. From Chris Columbus‘s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to David Yates‘s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, the films beautifully grew and matured alongside their loyal fanbase. Each Harry Potter installment has something unique to offer, and together, they form one of the most beloved sagas cinema has ever seen.
