Fantasy is having a major renaissance right now. Whether it's the dragon-filled drama of House of the Dragon or the billion-dollar spectacle of Wicked, audiences are craving escapism more than ever. But before every mythical property got its own extended universe, Hollywood quietly released a slew of fantasy films that didn't always find their audience on first arrival. Some bombed at the box office, others were overshadowed by bigger releases, but time has been remarkably generous to them all. Here are the forgotten fantasy movies that have aged like fine wine.
'Stardust' (2007)
Neil Gaiman's whimsical adaptation was crushed at the box office by The Bourne Ultimatum—a fact that seems absurd today, since only one of those films features a flying pirate ship captained by Robert De Niro in a corset. The story follows Tristan (Charlie Cox, in his pre-Daredevil days), a lovesick shop boy who crosses a magical wall to retrieve a fallen star for the girl he hopes to marry. That star turns out to be Yvaine (Claire Danes), who is understandably annoyed at being captured. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the witch hunting Yvaine's heart for eternal youth, and she chews the scenery with gleeful abandon. The whole thing feels like a fan-fiction version of The Princess Bride, with just enough weird charm to remind you Gaiman wrote it.
'Dragonheart' (1996)
Here's a movie where Sean Connery voices a CGI dragon, Dennis Quaid plays a washed-up knight, and the two become friends to con villagers out of their gold. That's the premise, and we warn you: you'll be sobbing by the end. The plot involves a tyrannical king (David Thewlis) whose life is saved when Connery's Draco donates half his heart, only for the king to grow up evil anyway. Quaid plays the disillusioned knight hunting dragons until he meets Draco and decides to run scams on peasants instead. The CGI was advanced for its time, and Connery's vocal performance carries more weight than you'd expect. It's the kind of earnest, mid-budget fantasy that studios don't make anymore—worth revisiting just to remember when they took chances on bonkers ideas.
'The Fall' (2006)
Tarsem Singh's visually deranged passion project spent years in development hell before a tiny 2008 release, where it baffled critics and earned almost nothing. It also happens to be one of the most beautiful movies ever made, shot in over two dozen countries with practically no CGI. A paralyzed Hollywood stuntman (Lee Pace) in a 1920s hospital tells a fanciful story to a young immigrant girl (Catinca Untaru) with a broken arm. As his real-life motivations darken, the story warps along with them. Untaru's performance is one of the great child performances on film—Tarsem reportedly never told her when cameras were rolling, letting her improvise responses to Pace. The fantasy sequences feature impossible landscapes and surreal costumes. After being unavailable on streaming for over a decade due to rights issues, the film finally got a proper restoration from MUBI in 2024, so there's no excuse not to watch now.
'The Pagemaster' (1994)
A live-action and animation hybrid about an anxious kid (Macaulay Culkin) who gets struck by lightning in a library and turns into a cartoon character, then has to navigate his way home through stories representing different literary genres. Seriously, why haven't you pressed play yet? With Christopher Lloyd playing both the spooky librarian and the voice of the Pagemaster, plus a voice cast including Patrick Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg, there's so much to love. Watching The Pagemaster now, when book bans are a daily news cycle and reading rates among kids have cratered, the film's earnest argument for getting lost in literature lands harder than it did in 1994. The animation is more textured than most CGI-saturated kids' movies today, with Moby Dick and Jekyll and Hyde sequences that wouldn't feel out of place in a Tim Burton movie. It's thrilling, scary, and utterly memorable.
'Ladyhawke' (1985)
The '80s were a great decade for absurd fantasy concepts. Exhibit A: Ladyhawke. A cursed pair of lovers are transformed into a hawk by day and a wolf by night, meaning they can never see each other in human form. Rutger Hauer plays the man, Michelle Pfeiffer plays the woman, and Matthew Broderick tags along as the wisecracking thief who agrees to help break the curse. The film is somehow both gorgeous (those Italian castles!) and off-puttingly experimental (a synth-rock score, really?). Pfeiffer plays one of those silent, ethereal medieval women who seem to subsist entirely on yearning and rye bread, yet it works. The premise is pure fantasy gold, and the film's reputation has only grown over the decades.
These forgotten gems prove that sometimes the best fantasy movies are the ones that didn't get their due at first. Whether you're in the mood for dragon adventures, literary journeys, or visually stunning epics, these films are worth revisiting. For more on the fantasy revival, check out our coverage of House of the Dragon Season 3 and other upcoming releases.
