Promotional art for the 1982 fantasy film, The Beastmaster. Amazingly, it became a cult classic. Even more amazingly, it became a franchise, with two sequel films and a television series. The film was shown on HBO so often that comedian Dennis Miller joked HBO stood for “Hey, Beastmaster’s on!”. And yes – it’s not that good but it’s a guilty pleasure of mine.
“Fantasy isn’t just a jolly escape: It’s an escape, but into something far more extreme than reality, or normality. It’s where things are more beautiful and more wondrous and more terrifying.” – Terry Gilliam
That’s how I introduced my Top 10 Fantasy Books and it’s even more apt for my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films, given I feature Terry Gilliam in my special mentions as one of my favorite directors of fantasy or SF films.
Although, the definition of fantasy might be less apt as my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films overwhelmingly leans towards SF, with eight entries as SF and only two entries as fantasy. As such, I will note each entry as either fantasy or SF.
In fairness, I might well have ranked more films as fantasy, or SF for that matter. When I compiled my top ten ‘non-genre’ films, I noted those with fantasy or SF elements. The same applies to my top ten comedy films. The distinction is that the fantasy or SF elements did not predominate in those films so as to rank them within the fantasy or SF genres but the elements are still there.
More substantially, I also have separate top tens for animated films, films adapted from comics, and horror films – each of which predominantly consist of films that could be ranked within the fantasy or SF genres. Animated films lean towards fantasy, films adapted from comics lean towards SF (albeit often functionally or outright fantasy for superheroes), and I have deliberately leaned my top ten horror films towards fantasy or supernatural horror.
Ironically, at least three of the SF entries in this top ten could be ranked as horror or more precisely SF horror (a sub-genre also reflected in the special mentions for my Top 10 Horror Films). Given the overlap of both fantasy and SF with horror, I will also note where an entry might have also been ranked as horror or arguably has elements of horror.
Anyway, here are my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films. Just a quick note – if you’re looking for The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, I rank them in my special mention entries. The former is because as much as I love that film trilogy, it is eclipsed by my love of the book trilogy, ranking it in top spot in My Top 10 Fantasy Books. The second is because I have a complicated love-hate relationship with the original Star Wars film trilogy – and that trilogy has been somewhat diminished by them running the franchise into the ground since. Which, to be honest, they’ve also pretty much done with The Lord of the Rings franchise, what with the Hobbit film trilogy and the Rings of Power TV series.