Entertainment
10 Heaviest Fantasy Movies, Ranked
Some fantasy movies do indeed also work as family films, but not all. It would be wild to expect everything fantastical to also be fantastically appealing to all ages in a The Wizard of Oz or a Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory sort of way. Like any genre, things would get boring if you could only go for one tone, or target one particular demographic.
Enter the following films, which are notable for being fantasy in one way or another, and also hopelessly downbeat at the same time. These are some of the heaviest fantasy movies ever made, and sure, some of them only partially fit into the fantasy genre, but if “fantasy” is one of the genres listed on Letterboxd for a particular movie’s entry there, then it has a chance of appearing in the ranking below.
10
‘Heavenly Creatures’ (1994)
Before he made movies set in Middle-earth, but after he made a bunch of low-budget/gross-out horror films, Peter Jackson also directed Heavenly Creatures, which is perhaps his most underrated work overall. It’s about two young girls who have a strange kind of bond, and a similarly uh, “unique” grasp on reality itself, and this makes things get very dreamy and sort of fantastical, at times.
But it’s also a low-key kind of fantasy, where some of the daydreams feel like escapes from more difficult things, and then when Heavenly Creatures deals with those difficult things, it gets pretty heavy. All that might sound a bit vague, but it’s a difficult movie to describe and put into words, in a good way. It’s a well-made film… just not a particularly fun or entertaining one, at least in the traditional sense.
9
‘The Seventh Seal’ (1957)
Another movie that’s probably more of a drama than a fantasy one, but it’s got enough that’s fantastical to count as both, The Seventh Seal is about a disillusioned man encountering Death and playing him in a game of chess. They discuss all sorts of heavy things, and then there’s more that happens after that, what with it being a movie about the Black Death and an exploration of some other people doing an R.E.M. and losing their religion.
There’s a lot going on, in other words, especially when you consider the fact that The Seventh Seal really isn’t an epic or anything, and clocks in at just over 90 minutes. It’s got a reputation for being a classic for many reasons, and it’s also heavy-going without being 100% despairing. It’s got a lot of despair and existentialism packed into it for sure, but parts of the film also prove life-affirming, making it overall kind of bittersweet.
8
‘Mandy’ (2018)
It’s hard to dig into Mandy without ruining much of it narratively, though if it’s any consolation, the experience of watching it is singular and so much harder to ruin. Basically, it plays out slowly at first, without really going in any direction narratively, until the couple at the movie’s center… well, one of them’s killed. And then the other goes on a violent rampage of revenge.
That whole revenge quest goes to some wild places, and it’s there where Mandy starts to feel like a bit of a fantasy, or maybe more comparable to a fever dream/nightmare kind of thing. Some of the nightmarish ultra-violence is also entertaining and cathartic, but the deep sadness of Mandy never really dissipates fully, and so it ends up being powerfully – and unpretentiously – about the destructive nature of revenge, and the difficulty of taking oneself out of a cycle of vengeance.
7
‘The Northman’ (2022)
Speaking of violent movies about revenge that get weirdly fantastical in parts, here’s The Northman, which is about the legend of Amleth, which was the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Hamlet. So, no surprises with the central plot, then, because this is about a young boy who grows into a man, and spends his whole life wanting revenge against his uncle, because said uncle killed his father.
Don’t expect too many monsters or creatures or anything here, since it’s not really that kind of fantasy. But The Northman does have surreal and/or vaguely supernatural moments that make it feel a little more than just a drama/action movie with a historical setting. Also, given the fact that it inspired a heavy-going Shakespearean play, it shouldn’t be too surprising to learn that The Northman also gets pretty bleak – and, indeed, tragic – at times.
6
‘Begotten’ (1989)
It’s hard to even know where to begin with a movie like Begotten, including the notion of whether it should count as a movie. Maybe it’s more of a nightmare, and certainly one that doesn’t have much by way of a plot. That would make it a fairly normal nightmare, then. Uh… but if one had to get more specific… it’s kind of fantasy? Or maybe it’s like religious horror?
The creation of life itself gets depicted in Begotten, and then Begotten also goes ahead and seems to suggest why life should never have been created.
It seems to be about creation. The creation of life itself gets depicted in Begotten, and then Begotten also goes ahead and seems to suggest why life should never have been created, or like, become a thing. It’s the sort of thing you’ll never be able to unsee, even if you want to, or there’s a chance you’ll watch it and find it all very silly. It’s grim, though, either way. Perhaps that’s the only thing supporters and detractors alike would be able to agree on.
5
‘Belladonna of Sadness’ (1973)
Belladonna of Sadness might well be one of the heaviest animated movies of all time, and it also happens to fit into the fantasy genre, too. It’s about a woman who’s wronged by a feudal lord and then the whole ordeal ruins her life, which makes her turn to the devil, making a deal with him to get revenge on the lord, which naturally complicates (and arguably worsens) things further.
It’s a movie that starts dark and then just keeps on getting darker, which could be why it’s not quite one of the most popular or approachable animated movies out there, or anything. Still, if you’re up for something challenging, Belladonna of Sadness has a lot to offer, and the visuals here are also undeniably unique, as little else animated/released since looks quite like it.
4
‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ (2006)
There really is something magical about Pan’s Labyrinth, and no, it’s not the fantasy elements. Well, it’s partly to do with the fantasy elements. There’s a genuinely interesting take on dark fantasy stuff here, and the ambiguity with which it might be real, or it might all be an imagined coping mechanism for the protagonist, seeing as she’s living in an immensely stressful situation.
Which… okay, that’s also a bit The Wizard of Oz, but Pan’s Labyrinth is very different from that movie, once you get past the idea of young girls traveling to different worlds and parts of one world being reflected in the other. Also, Pan’s Labyrinth might well be the greatest thing Guillermo del Toro has ever directed, but if you’re talking about his fantasy movies, there’s one that’s technically more harrowing.
3
‘The Devil’s Backbone’ (2001)
And that more harrowing Guillermo del Toro dark fantasy movie is The Devil’s Backbone, which was made a few years before Pan’s Labyrinth. It didn’t quite achieve the same level of popularity, but it’s almost just as good. Also fitting for a movie made a little earlier, The Devil’s Backbone is set slightly further back in time than Pan’s Labyrinth, taking place during the final stage of the Spanish Civil War, while Pan’s Labyrinth takes place after that same war.
Narratively, The Devil’s Backbone is about an orphanage that’s cursed, and follows a young boy discovering horrors there as a result, many of them of a supernatural variety. The whole film gets dark and even unpleasant at times, making it a little hard to recommend unless you’re prepared to feel a bit rotten. It’s amazingly atmospheric, though, and certainly visceral/hard to forget, once seen.
2
‘All of Us Strangers’ (2023)
All of Us Strangers is about a man who finds connection with another man, both of them very lonely. It starts to develop into something possibly romantic, though around the same time, the first man also reconnects with his parents. He hasn’t seen them in a while, to put it one way. That might not sound very fantastical, but it is, when you take into account his parents had been dead for years, and when he reconnects with them, they’re the same age they were when they died.
There are further things that happen, possibly even definable as plot twists, so All of Us Strangers does end up being quite surprising. It’s also heavy-going, as part of the overall emotional roller coaster it provides. Some of it goes up and is exciting, and then other parts seem keen to break your heart into as many pieces as possible. In good ways, it should be noted.
1
‘The Green Mile’ (1999)
Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan in ‘The Green Mile’
With The Green Mile, the fantasy elements are subdued, but they’re certainly there. It’s based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, which wasn’t necessarily an epic-length one by his standards, but the movie is about as long as you’d expect an epic to be. It takes place inside a prison, and mostly concerns prisoners on death row, and the staff who work there as well.
One prisoner has been falsely accused, and he also happens to have miraculous healing abilities, with a good deal of the drama in The Green Mile concerning desperate attempts to get such a man off death row. But this is a story all about death and confronting mortality and all that, and one that’s not afraid to get heavy and feel like a tearjerker, so it’s sobering stuff. Certainly about as far from whimsical and adventurous as a fantasy story can get.
