Entertainment
Only 5 Fantasy Movies Are Exactly As Good as The Lord of the Rings
The greatest era for visual effects in cinema history ran for about a decade, from the early ’90s to the dawn of the new millennium. During this period, CGI was a new tool used sparingly, supplementing, in a best-case scenario, classical Hollywood filmmaking craft. This period of prominence began with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, continuing through timeless classics like Jurassic Park, Titanic, and The Matrix before really climaxing with Peter Jackson‘s The Lord of the Rings (throughout the later aughts, overused CGI became less inspired and more obligatory). An enormous gamble on the part of New Line Cinema, The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still arguably the most ambitious production of the 21st century, and perhaps an unprecedented feat of world-building.
Jackson’s revered adaptation of JRR Tolkien‘s books is also widely considered the apex of fantasy film, and for good reason. Third entry The Return of the King wasn’t just a rare genre film to get some Oscar attention, it swept the 2004 ceremony, winning all 11 awards it was nominated for. The Lord of the Rings is mostly untouchable as a work of fantasy filmmaking, though the following masterpieces, all of them bona fide classics and considered among the best films ever made, deserve to be remembered as every bit as perfect. These are the only fantasy movies in history that are every bit as good as The Lord of the Rings.
5
‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)
Though it’s more commonly classified as science fiction, George Lucas would be the first to tell you his space opera creation is more of a space fantasy. Though there’s an internal logic to the historic original trilogy and, to a lesser extent, the prequels, that make them very much sci-fi, an internal logic that was mostly abandoned in the mostly awful sequel trilogy and modern spinoffs, this is a saga of mysticism designed to reinvigorate classical myth. Especially when viewed in their original, despecialized theatrical cuts, these first three films are all extraordinary landmarks of fantasy, with middle chapter, The Empire Strikes Back, universally considered the high point.
Critical response to Empire was mixed at first, with some saying the film lost some of the charm and innocence of the 1977 film. That’s entirely the point, though that response is understandable to a degree, because at that point, the story was incomplete. George Lucas is a creative genius, one of scarce few who’s created and populated his own world, though he himself has said he’s aware he’s not the best director. His mentor Irvin Kershner took the reins here, from a script Lucas co-devised with help and polish from Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett. The lesser Star Wars films with Lucas’ involvement have an element of sterility to them, but the human touch is all over The Empire Strikes Back, as is grandeur. Here, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) steps into a far scarier and murkier reality, ultimately learning his father is everything he hates in the most iconic twist ending in film history. Empire is unafraid of looking despair in the face, but it’s a rollicking good time from start to finish, with much humor and spirituality coming from Frank Oz‘s ingenious voice performance as the small, green, and wise Master Yoda.
4
‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (1946)
Years before it would become the quintessential Christmas classic (you know, along with Die Hard), Frank Capra‘s low fantasy melodrama was a box-office bomb and a critical meh. With the horrors of WWII only just truly sinking in and very much top of mind, a heartfelt fantasy film was something of an ask for mainstream audiences, even from a three-time Oscar-winning director in Frank Capra. In its day, It’s a Wonderful Life lost so much money it bankrupted Liberty Films. It would only become a classic after audiences rediscovered it on TV years later, much like The Wizard of Oz, which we’ll get to shortly.
Prominent critics of the time came down on It’s a Wonderful Life for perceived overreliance on sentimentality, but revisiting the film in present day, it’s almost shockingly dark. The in media res opening hinges on an everyman who’s ready to end his own life. A chunk of the film is even shot like pure film noir. The darkness is necessary, because it brings us what is, simply, the greatest, most authentic and most carefully set-up emotional payoff in movie history. Though people saw it as a great director’s misfire 80 years ago, it’s now considered Capra’s defining picture, and that of star James Stewart.
3
‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ (1971)
“Whimsy” is a word that’s often associated with Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and though that shoe fits, it’s really important to remember how dry and edgy the enterprise is. The second and third acts play out a lot like a slasher film (the immoral and unworthy characters are picked off one by one). There’s a heart of gold at the center, but it’s a morality play. Charlie Bucket (Peter Ostrum) is one of the best and most sympathetic protagonists in film. He wins because he is pure of heart.
Roald Dahl absolutely, famously, hated this adaptation of his 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, oddly enough for what he perceived to be a saccharine quality that went against the bite of the novel. This is where it’s really important to remember that book and film are different mediums, and Willy Wonka delivers a more emotionally robust, completely satisfying experience than reading the book, and whimsy is just a part of that. Tim Burton‘s 2005 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is technically a more faithful adaptation. It’s also terrible, with uncanny valley visuals, rancid and unfunny jokes and one of the most high-profile misfires of a lead performance in Johnny Depp‘s disturbing Michael Jackson impersonation. The 1971 picture is untouchable, with Gene Wilder’s lead performance a thing of timeless comic timing and grace.
2
‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939)
MGM’s iconic fantasy musical overcame one of the most infamously troubled mega-productions in film history to become an altogether awe-inspiring work of art and entertainment. Based on the children’s book by L. Frank Baum, Victor Fleming‘s timeless fantasy charmer represents the best of classic Hollywood filmmaking, much like the director’s Gone With the Wind, released the same year. The Wizard of Oz has endured like no other film in part for this reason, but watching the film for the millionth time today it’s easy to be blown away by just how much personality it has, from Judy Garland‘s golden voice and spunk, to the ingenious and detailed set design that’s still impressive under the aggressive clarity of a recent 4k restoration.
The third act of The Wizard of Oz is a high-stakes, red-blooded, pure and stone-faced adventure film. Though she was reportedly the kindest person to Judy Garland on a mostly cutthroat film set, Margaret Hamilton is so memorably evil as the Wicked Witch of the West she surely influenced nearly every major live-action film villain in her wake. There’s a reason the American Film Institute ranked The Wizard Oz rather high on its 2001 list of the most heart-pounding films ever made. It was such an expensive production that it lost money upon release, but TV airings became national events decades later, and in time, this became the most-watched movie in history.
1
‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ (1937)
Virtually every fantasy film made after 1937 owes a debt to Walt Disney’s breakthrough masterpiece, not least of all The Lord of the Rings. The Wizard of Oz was even greenlit specifically because of the astonishing success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (the highest-grossing movie ever made by a margin at the time of its release). Snow White was famously dubbed “Disney’s Folly” in the press leading up to its release as the studio head was famously putting his company and his entire livelihood on the line to produce Hollywood’s first feature-length animated feature, and no one seemed confident that an 80-minute cartoon could emotionally engage an audience. How wrong they were; Snow White remains intensely emotionally gripping nearly 90 years later. Lucille La Verne’s Queen is as cruel a villain as any in film, the princess is beguilingly gentle and kind, and the dwarfs are hilarious in a timeless slapstick fashion. The depth of the animation cels is still staggering, there’s so much detail and information in every frame it’s quite clear that this was a film studio going for broke, putting everything into this. The breathtaking 2023 4K UHD disc re-release is one of the best things the struggling, hardly venerated modern Disney company has done over the past few years.
Though technical advances have, obviously, been made in the near-90 years since its release, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs remains the greatest animated film of all time for its striking and primal power as well as its inestimable influence. Along with, say, The Lord of the Rings, The Exorcist and Star Wars, this is the ultimate movie about good versus evil, an innovative technical landmark just as surely as those pictures were. In adding Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to his “Great Movies” anthology, Roger Ebert rightly utilized a word that should rarely be used:
“The word genius is easily used and has been cheapened, but when it is used to describe Walt Disney, reflect that he conceived of this film, in all of its length, revolutionary style and invention, when there was no other like it–and that to one degree or another, every animated feature made since owes it something.”
- Release Date
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January 14, 1938
- Runtime
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83 minutes
- Director
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Ben Sharpsteen, Larry Morey, David Hand, Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson
- Writers
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Ferdinand Horvath, Dorothy Ann Blank, Ted Sears, Merrill De Maris, Webb Smith, Richard Creedon, Otto Englander, Dick Rickard, Earl Hurd
- Producers
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Walt Disney
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Adriana Caselotti
Snow White (voice) (uncredited)
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Lucille La Verne
Queen / Witch (voice) (uncredited)
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