Among thebest fantasy movies of all timeare those that blend fantasy with historical fiction.Many works of fantasy are inspired by historical events and texts,drawing upon real conflict to make works of fiction more applicable to real-world discourses. However, fantasy stories set in a real historical context can be especially satisfying, encouraging audiences to delve into the history that is entwined with magicians and monsters.
This selection of movies also demonstrates some overlap with thebest animated fantasy movies everand claims several of thebest fantasy movie performancesin history. For a long time, fantasy struggled to compete with other"more serious"genres; history imbued it with some legitimacy.Long after fantasy and sci-fi have become the reigning genres of pop culture, the fantasy-history combination still holds potentialwhen it has produced many great, educating movies.
The Northman
Cast
The Northman is a historical epic released in 2022 that follows Viking Prince Amleth on his quest for vengeance. After witnessing his father’s murder and his mother’s abduction by his uncle, Amleth dedicates his life to rescuing his mother and avenging these betrayals.
Alexander Skarsgård and Anya Taylor-Joy, known for their harsh and enigmatic roles with varying amounts of fantastical elements, are perfect to lead this gritty Viking chronicle. Meanwhile, other great actors like Nicole Kidman and Ethan Hawke take up supporting roles.The Northmanexhibits aHamlet-type story,wherein a king is murdered by his brother who is then targeted in vengeance by his nephew.
The Northmanisn’t an easy movie to watch, but it is captivating in its depiction of the complicated intersections of familial love and duty. Where the fantasy of it all is concerned,The Northmanengages with Norse mythology,with Taylor-Joy’s character’s untold powers, a Seeress played by Icelandic musician Björk, visions of Valkyries, and more. The result is a grandiose fantasy epic made more so by mythological and historical elements that are never gentle.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
In 1926, British magizoologist Newt Scamander travels to New York City in his ongoing field research into magical creatures. Here, he finds himself caught up in some trouble involving a No-Maj, local wizarding law enforcement, and the Dark Wizard Grindelwald.
Fantastic Beastsis amovie franchise that might have gone off the railslater, but the first movie featuring Eddie Redmayne as magical creatures specialist and aspiring writer Newt Scamander is near perfect.Redmayne is the only actor to portray Newt’s quirky, perceptive persona,while variously famous and lesser-known actors like Katherine Waterston, Dan Folger, Alison Sudol, and Colin Farrell excel in their roles.
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The first Wizarding World property to focus on America, longtimeHarry Potterfans find interesting translations of American culture and government into magical counterparts. While noteworthy locations are touched upon,Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Themalso includes some beautiful, very historical moments, like a magical Prohibition-era bar.
The movie is made highly enjoyable by the likable characters as well as the wide variety of magical creatures Newt is carrying,with some promises of a bigger conflict brewing.Fantastic Beasts, unfortunately, fell into decline, but the first movie accomplishes a strong combination of a story about misconceptions and an exhibition of more of the Wizarding World.
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
The Tale of The Princess Kaguya is a Studio Ghibli animated film directed by Isao Takahata. Released in 2013, the story follows a mysterious young princess discovered inside a bamboo stalk by an elderly couple. As she grows into a beautiful woman, she captivates everyone while facing her destined path.
The movie amazingly captures the feeling of overwhelming regret and a better life that could have been, transcending any filmmaking limitations.
The Tale of Princess Kaguya(alsoThe Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter) has been dated to the Heian period of Japanese history, retold many times before it reached Studio Ghibli. Most ofGhibli’s best moviesare bittersweet and melancholy, showcasing a spectrum of joyful and sorrowful experiences. YetThe Tale of Princess Kaguyastands out as different among the studio’s other works,a distortion of its typical animation and storytelling styles, even if the narrative is admittedly slow-paced and confusing.
Amid the dreamier and sweeping animation recounting the freedom found in nature,The Tale of Princess Kaguyabreaks hearts with the story of the title character.This girl sadly endures a patriarchal setting after she is taken away from the love she found early in her human life. The movie amazingly captures the feeling of overwhelming regret and a better life that could have been, transcending any filmmaking limitations.
Hugo
Based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Hugo follows the titular character, a young boy living alone in a train station in Paris. While working to restore an automaton found by his late father, Hugo becomes involved in a mystery surrounding the automaton and filmmaker Georges Méliès. Asa Butterfield stars as Hugo, with Chloë Grace Moretz, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen, and Jude Law as part of the main cast.
Hugois not a fantasy in the strictest sense, and more of an exploration of fantasy as a concept in people’s lives. In possession of a strange automaton, orphaned Hugo sets out with his new friend Isabelle to discover the career of a legendary filmmaker.Hugocan loosely be called a fantasy because the works of Georges Méliès are benchmark fantasies,which metatextually characterize the movie and its themes.
With a stacked cast that Martin Scorsese was unsurprisingly able to attract,Hugois an enlightening exploration of cinematic history.The whimsical, hopeful worlds created by Méliès and his collaborators contrast with the cold reality for many in Paris at the time. Yet Scorsese still captures the incredible setting, blending it with themes of believing in magic, which leads to everyone finding family and a happy, peaceful ending.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a martial arts film directed by Ang Lee. Released in 2000, the story revolves around warriors Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu Lien, played by Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh, as they pursue a stolen sword and encounter a mysterious young aristocrat. The film is renowned for its lush visuals and choreographed fight scenes, blending romance and adventure against a historical Chinese backdrop.
The famed installment in the careers of director Ang Lee and icons Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh accomplished action sequences with gravitas (even if some of the jumps clearly aren’t natural). The romance that never was between these legendary actors' characters is set against a younger romance and a younger storyline.The thief and warrior Jen sets in motion a spiraling chain of events when she steals a famous sword,an action that is a byproduct of her uncertainty about life.
Considered a movie of the wuxia genre,Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragondabbles in fantasy and magic in surrealistic forms to facilitate the character arcs.Against the backdrop of a martial arts epic are human stories of lost love and finding peace. In the end, Jen finds her own way, which was never about so brashly acting out, while her informal mentors finally voice the truth in a cathartic moment of honesty.
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
The Curse of the Black Pearl is the film that kickstarted the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, a series of supernatural swashbuckling adventures. In 1720, blacksmith Will Turner teams up with eccentric pirate “Captain” Jack Sparrow to save his love, the governor’s daughter Elizabeth Swann, from Jack’s former pirate allies, who are now undead.
Disney pulled off the surprise summer blockbuster of the decade back in 2003, turning one of its iconic theme park attractions with essentially no plot into a hit-action movie.Captain Jack Sparrow enjoys an easy ride through this movie, exhibiting an indefinable persona expertly portrayed by Johnny Depp,with a mysterious past and straightforward goals of more adventure.
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Geoffrey Rush was perfect to play a classic, cackling villain, whilethe movie benefited from Orlando Bloom’s recentLord of the Ringsbreakthrough, and Keira Knightley was a stellar lesser-known casting choice.Other great actors make up the supporting cast, playing dynamic characters in an engaging if fictionalized version of the historical setting.
Pirates of the Caribbeancontributes to the mythos of the adventure and rebellion of the Golden Age of Piracy,with perfect nods to the ride and spooky curses to elevate the story. This gave rise to a lucrative franchise with many brilliant designs, even if the story slowly crept downward.
The Boy and the Heron
Billed as the final work of famed animator Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron is a drama-fantasy film that follows a young boy named Mahito who contends with grief following the passing of his mother during World War II. Forced to evacuate to the countryside amid the war, Mahito struggles to fit into his new environment and contend with his new stepmother. However, Mahito’s life is changed after meeting a strange talking Heron - setting him on a journey of self-discovery filled with magic.
The Boy and the Heron’s opening sequence is the most historically relevant part of the movieand its best illustration of how far Studio Ghibli’s animation has come. Mahito escaping cascades of flames is an emetic sequence that sharply segues into the drastically different world of the countryside. Yet the rest of the story bears the subtle undertones of the opening, affecting its final message.
Mahito navigates his way through an otherworld stocked with metaphorical characters and power structures,visual nods to folklore, and past Studio Ghibli movies. It creeps up on Mahito, showing him perspectives he cannot ignore. Heartwarming side characters like Mahito’s young mother and future elderly caretaker shed more light on different parts of his own life. Overall, it’s actually too confusing to be made sense of in a hard thesis. However, the feelings of grief and reconciliation come through.
The Green Knight
An epic fantasy adventure based on the timeless Arthurian legend, The Green Knight tells the story of Sir Gawain, King Arthur’s reckless and headstrong nephew, who embarks on a daring quest to confront the eponymous Green Knight, a gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men. Gawain contends with ghosts, giants, thieves, and schemers in a more profound journey to define his character and prove his worth in the eyes of his family and kingdom by facing the ultimate challenger.
It was shockingly snubbed by the Oscars when cinema is unlikely to see a movie like it again any time soon.
The Green Knightis a highly surrealistic take on the famed medieval text, featuring Dev Patel as King Arthur’s kin Sir Gawain (although Arthur is not named in the movie).Those who know anything about the source material will recognize thatThe Green Knightputs Gawain in a much less flattering light,emphasizing the toxic and destructive nature of knighthood. After a strange and sensual journey to find the Green Knight again, Gawain painfully recognizes his faults inThe Green Knight’s cutting ending.
The characters played by Alicia Vikander and Erin Kellyman exhibit different shades of the same role, where they are only a passing part of the story (Kellyman especially) but judge Gawain in their own way, backed by out-of-this-world performances.The Green Knightis a condemnation,with some alluring settings along the way. It was shockingly snubbed by the Oscars when cinema is unlikely to see a movie like it again any time soon.
Midnight in Paris
Written and directed by Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris stars Owen Wilson as Gil Pender, a struggling writer who, on a trip to Paris with his fiance, begins traveling back in time to the 1920s every night at midnight, leading him to meet and mingle with some of the city’s biggest names of the time. Besides Wilson, the cast includes Rachel McAdams, Tom Hiddleston, Kathy Bates, Marion Cotillard, Corey Stoll, and Adrien Brody.
LikeHugo,Midnight in Parisillustrates how Paris has its own kind of magic,through the lens of a movie with a much more lighthearted tone. Following a struggling writer who accidentally travels back in time to the 1920s in Paris, Woody Allen’s masterpiece is an indulgent stroll through the city and its history.
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Owen Wilson’s Gil meets up with the Lost Generation,who are riding out Prohibition in Paris and played by a veritable roster of A-listers. The high-quality production means dazzling costumes and sets, while those with some sense of the urban legends surrounding these figures and their writing style will chuckle at the way they are portrayed.
There is a less pleasant moral underneath all this about being unsatisfied with life and making the most of the time one is born into, as well as lightly mocking the upper class and"pseudo-intellectuals.“Yet the audience just needs to do their part to internalize this lesson when everything else inMidnight in Parisis pure pleasure,with some flashes of other periods making cameos.
Pan’s Labyrinth
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth follows Ofelia, a ten-year-old girl living in 1940s Spain who learns she is actually a long-lost fairy princess. With the help of a faun, she is set a series of tasks to complete in order to return to her true home in the fairy underworld. Ivana Baquero stars as Ofelia, with Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, and Doug Jones making up the rest of the main cast.
Guillermo del Toro’s career-defining movie depicts the tragedy of a child who wants to escape an unhappy and horrifying existence. She may or may not accomplish this, givenPan’s Labyrinth’s ambiguous ending.The master of monsters creates beings like the guiding Faun and the Pale Man to showcase different aspects of the main themeabout a child’s perspective of terrible events. Greed, violence, and dehumanizing betrayal infect Ofelia’s life, wherein she believes only she can be the heroine.
The movie at least rewards audiences with the downfall of Ofelia’s stepfather, a cruel army officer. The dark and glamorizing fantasy elements entrance viewers as much as Ofelia, with a conclusion that reminds people that not all stories end happily, especially under these circumstances.The historical setting ofPan’s Labyrinthis leveraged to reinforce Ofelia’s experiences and the story del Toro wants to tell,which is the best use of history in fantasy.
