The 10 Best Fantasy Movies of All Time, Ranked According to the AFI

Published Oct 5, 2026, 7:38 AM EDT

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Fantasy movies are some of the film business's most reliable efforts. From epic franchises like The Lord of the Rings to classics like The Wizard of Oz, fantasy movies are crucial to Hollywood's fabric, providing audiences with dazzling adventures that defy conventions and expectations, and invite imaginations to soar.

The American Film Institute recognizes the importance of fantasy, including it among the ten classic film genres it honored in its 2008 series 10 Top 10. Defining it as a genre "in which live-action characters inhabit imagined settings and experience situations that transcend the rules of the natural world," the AFI named ten classics the best fantasy pictures of all time.

10 'Big' (1988)

Image via 20th Century Fox

Tom Hanks became a certified leading man and received his first Oscar nomination for Penny Marshall's 1988 fantasy comedy Big. The plot follows Josh Baskin, a 12-year-old boy who wakes up as an adult after using an antique fortune-teller machine and wishing to be "big."

Endearing and elevated by Hanks' unassuming turn, Big is a charming comedic classic of the modern age. With a sharp, witty screenplay and a cast of stellar performers, Big gets away with its wacky premise, delivering an original and hilarious fantasy comedy that's impossible to resist.

9 'The Thief of Bagdad' (1929)

Image via United Artists

The silent era delivered several fantasy classics, including Douglas Fairbanks' swashbuckling adventure, The Thief of Bagdad. Based on a folk tale from One Thousand and One Nights, the film centers on Ahmed, a notorious thief who pretends to be a prince to win over the princess of Bagdad.

Widely recognized as one of the silent era's seminal pictures, The Thief of Bagdad is a cinematic institution for the fantasy and action genres. Led by the ever-charming and commanding Fairbanks, The Thief of Bagdad is escapism in its purest form, a sweeping and imaginative adventure that satisfies, mystifies, and entertains.

8 'Groundhog Day' (1993)

Image via Columbia Pictures

Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell star in the late Harold Ramis' fantasy comedy Groundhog Day. The story follows a cynical weather forecaster who finds himself stuck in a time loop while covering the annual Groundhog Day celebration in the small and quaint Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney.

Juggling fantasy, science fiction, and comedy is no easy task, yet Ramis and Murray make it look effortless. Groundhog Day is clever, eccentric, and always hysterical, an intriguing combination of themes and ideas that never runs out of steam. With plenty of heart and a refreshingly cynical take on optimism, Groundhog Day is a one-of-a-kind comedy and one of cinema's greatest triumphs from the 80s.

7 'Harvey' (1950)

Image via Universal Pictures

The classic Hollywood actor and iconic screen legend James Stewart makes his first appearance in the AFI's fantasy ranking with his 1950 fantasy-comedy Harvey. The iconic actor plays Elwood P. Dowd, an odd but well-meaning man whose best friend is a giant rabbit. While his friends have gotten used to the idea, his sister has other plans.

Elevated by Stewart's sincere and self-effacing performance, Harvey succeeds as a crowd-pleasing fantasy and a fascinating character study. The film is delightful and gentle, a warm and unpretentious ode to eccentricity that only the most hard-hearted will find uninteresting.

6 'Field of Dreams' (1989)

Image via Universal Pictures

Based on the 1982 novel Shoeless Joe, Field of Dreams centers on Ray Kinsella, a farmer who builds a baseball field on his cornfield. When the ghosts of legendary baseball players arrive, Ray sees it as an opportunity to reconcile with his past: Kevin Costner and Ray Liotta star.

Half fantasy drama, half sports movie, Field of Dreams is a moving celebration of family. With an intriguing premise and an endlessly quotable script, Field of Dreams is a shamelessly sentimental crowd-pleaser that wears its inspirations and messages on its sleeve and walks the fine line between genuine emotions and overt manipulation.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood

Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.

💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)

👒Grand Line(One Piece)

🐺The Continent(The Witcher)

🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)

FIND YOUR WORLD →

01

What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.

ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.

AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.

AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.

AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.

ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.

AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.

ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.

AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…

Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.

Middle-earth

You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.

• This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
• You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
• The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
• You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.

The Grand Line

You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.

• One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
• You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
• The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
• You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.

The Continent

You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.

• Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
• You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
• The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
• You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.

Camp Half-Blood

You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.

• Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
• You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
• The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
• Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

5 'Miracle on 34th Street' (1947)

Perennial Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street is a must-see during the holiday season. The plot centers on Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn), a kindly man working as Santa Claus in Macy's midtown Manhattan store. However, complications ensue when he claims to be the real Santa, leading to a scandalous court case.

Miracle on 34th Street is admittedly sentimental, the movie equivalent of a warm hug from someone who doesn't know when to stop. However, the film wears its charm and warmth on its sleeve, resulting in an irresistible film that will win over even those who famously resist the holiday cheer.

4 'King Kong' (1933)

Image via RKO Radio Pictures

The Eighth Wonder of the World came to life in Merian C. Cooper's 1933 horror classic King Kong. The film follows a filmmaking crew arriving at a secluded island, where a giant ape dubbed Kong becomes obsessed with the leading lady, Ann Darrow (Fay Wray).

A groundbreaking achievement of special effects at the time of its original release, King Kong was a cinematic game-changer. The film has aged beautifully, with many considering it among the all-time best horror pictures. Above all, King Kong is a fascinating exploration of humanity, ambition, and the truth behind what it means to be a monster.

3 'It's A Wonderful Life' (1946)

Image via Paramount Pictures

James Stewart stars in another of cinema's most acclaimed fantasy movies, the 1946 Christmas classic, It's a Wonderful Life. The story centers on George Bailey, a depressed man considering ending his life on Christmas Eve, who receives the visit of an angel showing him how different the lives of those he loves would've been had he never existed.

It wouldn't be an overstatement to call It's a Wonderful Life one of cinema's most uplifting films. Joyous, hopeful, and sentimental in all the right ways, the film is one of the big screen's ultimate "hurrahs," a heartwarming crowd-pleaser that reminds audiences about the importance of togetherness and the need for human intimacy.

2 'The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring' (2001)

Image via New Line Cinema

Peter Jackson's fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a remarkable adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's seminal eponymous novel. The film follows the titular Fellowship, a band of warriors who join four hobbits to take the One Ring to the fires of Mount Doom and destroy it before the Dark Lord Sauron can get to it.

Bringing Tolkien's notoriously ambitious and sprawling saga to life is no easy task. Luckily for cinema lovers worldwide, Jackson took on the responsibility and lived up to the fans' lofty expectations, delivering a faithful, rich, and comprehensive big-screen adaptation. Taking everything that worked about the novels and translating it into cinema's unique language beautifully, The Fellowship of the Ring is a cinematic triumph of epic proportions.

1 'The Wizard of Oz' (1939)

Image via Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

1939 was a banner year for Hollywood, producing some of the all-time best motion pictures in history, none more beloved than Victor Fleming's timeless classic The Wizard of Oz. The legendary Judy Garland stars as Dorothy Gale, a young girl transported to the magical land of Oz, where she must seek the powerful wizard to return home.

Delightful and enchanting, The Wizard of Oz is a bona fide big-screen classic. With an enduring message about home and the ties that bind people, The Wizard of Oz is a sweet and endlessly charming adventure that still represents the very best form of escapism the big screen has ever produced.

The Wizard of Oz