6 of the Best Fantasy Films of All Time (That Aren't Lord of the Rings)

Goodfellas

What do you think of when you hear the word fantasy? Bearded wizards casting weird spells? Dashing knights slaying dragons? As far as I’m concerned you can take that lot and jump in a lake, because the greatest fantasy film ever created follows the biggest fantasy of them all: selling cocaine, murdering people and robbing airlines for extortionate amounts of cash.

What’s more fantastical than a soup to nuts story of one man’s ambition to make it in the criminal world of Brooklyn over three blood-soaked decades, only to be undone by a lucky hat? Nothing I can think of. Now, come on, make that coffee to go. Ashley Carter (Editor)

The Mummy

For some inexplicable reason, The Mummy only has a 61% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. If there’s been a greater injustice in cinematic history than that, I want to hear it. Fun, funny and full of ridiculously charming performances, this is one of the most outright enjoyable movies of all time – and it’s well-deserving of its cult classic status in the present day. 

Led by two of the most likeable performers in Hollywood in Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz, The Mummy is fantasy filmmaking at its finest, emulating the action-packed excitement of an Indiana Jones while feeling fresh and unique in its own right. It may have been overlooked back in 1999, but over two decades later, it is finally being treated with the respect it deserves. There is hope for the world after all… George White (Assistant Editor)

Princess Mononoke

All of Hayao Miyazaki's films have elements of fantasy, but Princess Mononoke is one of Studio Ghibli's deepest dives into the realms of myth and legend. Prince Ashitaka leaves his kingdom in search of answers after being cursed by a vengeful demon, and on his travels encounters strange spirits, talking beasts and, of course, a warrior princess in this surprisingly visceral and bloody entry in the Ghibli canon.

Rather than the Eurocentric aesthetics we typically see in mainstream high fantasy, Princess Mononoke adopts Muromachi-era Japan as its setting and populates it with Shinto-influenced gods and spirits. The bewitching atmosphere is completed by one of composer Joe Hisaishi's finest scores, accentuating all of the intrigue and excitement of this vivid, viridian setting. Like most great fantasy adventures, Princess Mononoke presents a world you'd love to explore for yourself – that is, until the swords (and fangs) come out, and you're grateful to be watching the action through a screen. Jamie Morris (Screen Editor)

The Green Knight

In 2017’s A Ghost Story, director David Lowery used a story anchored in grief to transport us through time and memory, confronting what film distributor A24 labelled as “the enormity of existence”. So, with Lowery at the helm for another A24-backed film, The Green Knight, based on the late fourteenth century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it was clear this would be no ordinary medieval tale of gallantry. 

Instead we’re taken from the court of King Arthur to the forest of the Green Knight, following Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) as he searches for standing after accepting the Knight’s deadly challenge. Along the way there are giants, a loyal fox and a cast of playful characters hinting that it’s all just a game. And it just might be. Gawain’s true discovery seems to be that in the face of nature’s destructive endurance, man’s best path might be an acceptance of duality. That passion can live alongside reason and logic. As Gawain becomes more impulsive and instinctual, so he gets closer to a natural state in harmony with his environment. Jeremy Arblaster

Celine and Julie Go Boating

We first see Julie (Dominique Labourier) casually seated on a park bench leafing through a book on magic and drawing runic symbols in the dirt with her feet. By the time her soon-to-be kindred spirit Celine (Juliet Berto) shuffles past draped in a green feather boa, dropping an endless supply of personal belongings as she goes, we are already some way down the rabbit hole.

Jacques Rivette’s fifth feature is a convention-shattering film constructed through a series of vignettes in which reality is dictated by a dream-like logic, and every moment feels imbued with pregnant pauses and magical suspension. Like so much of Rivette’s work, it is a film about parallel lives and worlds, as Celine and Julie chance upon a haunted house that plays host to the scrambled narrative of a Henry James-inspired Victorian melodrama – which they can only return to by consuming brightly coloured boiled sweets. It's a miraculous tightrope walk of overlapping structures and joyous improvisation that combines to create one of the most inventive films in cinema history – if that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is. Daniel Turner

Pan's Labyrinth

Set in the year 1944 in fascist Spain, Pan’s Labyrinth doesn’t have the usual ingredients for a fairy tale – though “usual” is seldom Guillermo Del Toro’s style. Avid book-worm Ofelia and her heavily pregnant mother, Carmen, arrive at the camp of the latter’s new husband, Captain Vidal; a Hitler-esque character haunted by the death of his father. Mourning the loss of her own dad, Ofelia is unable to accept the malevolent Vidal as a replacement and instead turns to her books for happiness. 

From here, the film takes us on a fantastically dark adventure, exploring the theme of belief throughout. In a stark juxtaposition of the harsh reality of war, the belief of success in the Spanish rebels remains strong, as they battle to overpower the greed of Vidal. Alongside this, we witness Ofelia’s desire to escape this ominous world, which only becomes greater as the horrors surrounding her gradually worsen. In the end, it is the belief in her quest that keeps her spirit afloat. Beth Green