Fantasy movies show us worlds beyond our own where the fantastic is real. But the genre also serves up some poignant insights about the world in which we live. That’s one of the reasons why it remains a popular genre among fans. And while Netflix doesn’t have as many big fantasies from other studios that it used to have, it does have several original movies to help fill that gap. So as we head into the end of 2022, these are the best fantasy movies on Netflix.
We’ve also rounded up the best fantasy movies on Amazon Prime and the best fantasy movies on Hulu if Netflix doesn’t have what you’re looking for.
Recently added to Netflix
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Slumberland2022
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The Addams Family1991
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Labyrinth1986
146m
Genre
Fantasy, Action, Drama
Stars
Sofia Wylie, Sophia Anne Caruso, Kerry Washington
Directed by
Paul Feig
In one of Netflix’s biggest original fantasy films to date, The School for Good and Evil is the story of two girls: Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) and Agatha (Sofia Wylie). They also happen to be close friends before they were spirited away to the titular School for Good and Evil. Once they arrive, Sophie is shocked when she is placed in the evil school, while Agatha finds herself out of place in the good school. Regardless, Agatha soon discovers that she may be the most natural princess in ages, while Sophie is manipulated into embracing evil until it literally transforms her into something unrecognizable. Despite their differences, Sophie and Agatha’s destinies are still intertwined.
117m
Genre
Family, Fantasy, Adventure, Drama
Stars
Jason Momoa, Marlow Barkley, Chris O'Dowd
Directed by
Francis Lawrence
Winsor McCay’s comic strip, Little Nemo in Slumberland, has largely been forgotten since its conclusion nearly 100 years ago. But it serves as the basis for Netflix’s Slumberland, which takes some liberties with the original comic. For example, Nemo (Marlow Barkley) is a girl in this incarnation, and her waking life is very difficult without her late father, Peter (Kyle Chandler). In her dreams, Nemo meets an enigmatic con artist, Flip (Jason Momoa), who offers her a chance to reunite with her father if she helps him on his quest. From there, a magical journey begins.
102m
Genre
Comedy, Fantasy
Stars
Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd
Directed by
Barry Sonnenfeld
With Wednesday winning over a new generation of fans, it’s time to revisit 1991’s theatrical adaptation of The Addams Family. This was a revival of the TV series based on Charles Addams’ characters, and it’s incredibly well-cast. Christina Ricci becomes a star before your eyes thanks to her turn as Wednesday, while the late Raul Julia absolutely lights up the screen as her father, Gomez Addams.
Within the film, Christopher Lloyd’s Gordon Craven has an uncanny resemblance to Gomez’s long-missing brother, Fester. At the behest of his mother, Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson), Gordon goes undercover as Uncle Fester in the Addams household in order to steal their fortune. The complication is that Gordon soon discovers that he loves being an Addams. And if he betrays them, then his newfound family will be lost.
102m
Genre
Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Stars
David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud
Directed by
Jim Henson
Jim Henson’s final theatrical film as a director, Labyrinth, is his most enduring cinematic legacy outside of The Muppets. Jennifer Connelly stars as Sarah Williams, a young girl who is upset by her new stepmother and her infant half-brother, Toby (Toby Froud). After wishing her brother away in a moment of anger, Jareth the Goblin King (David Bowie) takes advantage and steals Toby. To recover her brother and redeem herself, Sarah ventures into the enigmatic Labyrinth to solve its riddle … if she can.
102m
Genre
Thriller, Science Fiction
Stars
Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Saniyya Sidney, Lorraine Toussaint
Directed by
Julia Hart
Fast Color is such a low-key superhero story that it could almost function without the superpowers. Gugu Mbatha-Raw stars as Ruth, a woman whose superhuman abilities cause earthquakes and seizures. After returning home to see her mother, Bo (Lorraine Toussaint), Ruth finally gets to know Lila (Saniyya Sidney), the daughter that she abandoned years ago. Both Bo and Lila have powers of their own, and they try to train Ruth to control her abilities. Unfortunately, Bill (Christopher Denham) and some renegade scientists want to capture Ruth and use her for their own purposes.
Digital Trends streaming roundup
Genre
Fantasy, Family, Horror
Cast
Winslow Fegley, Lidya Jewett, Krysten Ritter
Don’t fancy yourself a storyteller? Well, as the saying goes, necessity can very well be the mother of invention as the young Alex (Winslow Fegley) learns in Netflix’s new dark fantasy film Nightbooks. Based on the 2018 novel by J.A. White, Nightbooks stars Krysten Ritter as a terrifying witch who imprisons Alex. In order to escape certain death at her hands, Alex must tell her a scary story every night to entertain her. Knowing his death is inevitable otherwise, Alex befriends the witch’s servant, Yazmin (Lidya Jewett), and together they try to outwit the evil sorceress to escape her mystical home. Scheduled to start streaming in the middle of September, Nightbooks promises to be both scary and family-friendly while giving Ritter a wonderful chance to play against type./dt_media]
Some of the best fantasy stories are the oldest. Case in point — Errementari: The Black Smith and the Devil, based on a Basque reimagining of the fairy tale The Smith and the Devil. In 19th-century Spain, the supposed government investigator Alfredo Ortiz (Ramón Agirre) arrives in a small village looking for lost treasure. His search leads him to a forge in the nearby woods where the blacksmith Paxti (Kandido Uranga) lives in solitude. When Ortiz hires men to help him raid the forge, a young girl named Usue (Uma Bracaglia) sneaks in to recover a lost doll — and makes a terrifying discovery. Errementari is a wonderful fusion of fantasy and bone-chilling horror that still captures the sense of fascination children have for fairy tales and folklore.
Genre
Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Cast
Darren Wang, Song Jia, Cao Bingkun
Sang Yu (Darren Wang) isn’t doing very well. Struggling to make it as a screenwriter, he becomes plagued by nightmares in which he’s pursued by a demon. He becomes disturbed enough by his dreams that he does everything he can to avoid sleep, but decades of Freddy Krueger movies have taught us how well that’s going to work out. After one of his frightful dreams, he discovers something that changes his life — he has the ability to bring objects out of his dreams and into the real world. Sang uses his newfound power to go from rags to riches practically overnight, but when a ruthless gangster discovers the secret of his success, things get even more complicated.
135m
Genre
Drama, Thriller, Horror
Stars
Jesse Plemons, Jessie Buckley, Toni Collette
Directed by
Charlie Kaufman
This is a Charlie Kaufman fantasy, which is to say there are no mystical creatures, only humans caught up in their own baffling imaginations. One of the more polarizing films of 2020, I’m Thinking of Ending Things is aggressively weird, coming across like a Beckett play at times. Yet, it’s also oddly beautiful in its strange meanderings and tangents. Jessie Buckley plays a young woman who, full of misgivings and about ready to end her relationship with her new boyfriend, still accompanies him to his parents’ secluded farm — far, far from the city — for dinner.
105m
Genre
Adventure, Drama
Stars
Rohan Chand, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Benedict Cumberbatch, Naomie Harris
Directed by
Andy Serkis
Oddly enough, two major takes on The Jungle Book were released within two years of one another. The first, Disney’s The Jungle Book, got better reviews, but Netflix’s Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle has more stunning special effects and a far more faithful retelling of Rudyard Kipling’s classic tales. Director Andy Serkis — a master of VFX — goes above and beyond in this jungle fantasy that is genuinely terrifying at times. Mowgli tells the classic tale of a human child raised by a wolf pack in the jungles of India under the tutelage of the panther Bagheera and bear Baloo. But what Disney’s version overlooks is the sheer sadism and megalomania of the tiger Shere Khan. This version doesn’t.
108m
Genre
Drama, Fantasy
Stars
Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones
Directed by
J. A. Bayona
Conor’s mother (Felicity Jones) is dying. Coping with the heavy load of maintaining the household during his mother’s illness, the bullying he suffers at school, and the horrible nightmares he endures are all getting to be too much. Comfort comes from the most unexpected of sources — a giant humanoid tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) who promises the young Conor (Lewis MacDougall) nothing more than three stories. Surprisingly honest about the trials of childhood, A Monster Calls is a powerful exploration of grief, and a uniquely extraordinary example of how fantasy can serve as much more than pure escapism.
91m
Genre
Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Stars
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
Directed by
Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
What is the airspeed of an unladen swallow? How do you tell if someone is a witch? And if you come across a rabbit at the entrance of a cave, how fast do you run and why aren’t you running already? All of these questions and more can be at least partially answered only with the 1975 comedy classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The second feature film made by the legendary cast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Holy Grail is absolutely mandatory for any fan of swords and sorcery fantasy, comedy, or any kind of movie that keeps you laughing so hard from start to finish that you’ll never stop to consider whether or not it makes any sense (SPOILER: it does not).
81m
Genre
Animation, Drama, Fantasy
Stars
Victoire Du Bois, Hakim Faris, Victoire Du Bois, Patrick d'Assumçao
Directed by
Jérémy Clapin
Winner of the 2020 César Award for Best Animated Film, I Lost My Body is a genre-bending fever dream, propelled by gorgeous art and an appropriately bizarre premise. The star of the film? A severed hand. When the hand gains consciousness in a dissection lab, it has one primary purpose: To return to its body. The hand must scramble through Paris to find its way back to the pizza delivery man who is missing him, all the while remembering the glory days when it was still attached. That is, until they met Gabrielle.
Genre
Fantasy, Action, Thriller
Cast
Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Lucy Fry
Bright wasn’t well-received when it arrived on Netflix, but since its premiere in 2017, it has become one of the most-streamed films on the platform. That’s because, while the movie is flawed, it does have a unique world, impressive practical effects, and a timely story about crime and discrimination. In Bright, humans coexist with a variety of fantasy races. The film follows Ward (Will Smith) and his partner Jakoby (Joel Edgerton), the first orc police officer. The two have a strained relationship because Ward was previously injured by an orc robber, and it is believed that Jakoby let the robber go on purpose. The film tries to juggle complex issues of race, identity, and loyalty while also telling a larger-than-life fantasy story. It doesn’t always juggle those topics particularly well, but it remains one of the most ambitious fantasy films of the last several years.
135m
Genre
Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Stars
Ryosuke Yamada, Tsubasa Honda, Dean Fujioka
Directed by
Fumihiko Sori
Fullmetal Alchemist is a live-action film based on the popular manga and anime of the same name. The film, like the subsequent versions, follows brothers Edric and Alphonse. The brothers live with their ill mother in the countryside, where they study alchemy. After their mother dies, however, they try to bring her back to life with a forbidden Human Transmutation. The alchemy fails and has severe consequences: Edric loses his arm and leg, while Alphonse loses his entire body and his spirit possesses an empty suit of armor. The two brothers grow up to become state alchemists while continuing to hide their taboo act and pursue a stone that has the power to restore their bodies. The film received mixed reviews, but it does feature some pretty advanced film techniques and high production value, rendering it worth the watch, especially for fans of the show and manga.
Genre
Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction, Action
Cast
Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Seo-hyun Ahn, Jake Gyllenhaal, Devon Bostick, Lily Collins, Steven Yuen
From Oscar-winning writer-director Bong Joon Ho, Okja is a brilliant mesh of animal rights versus big business, both operating in the body of a beautifully crazy film. The story follows Mija (Seo-hyun Ahn), a South Korean farm girl and owner of a genetically modified super-pig named Okja. Developed by the multinational Mirando Corporation, several prototypes of these genetically modified pigs were sent out into the world. After 10 years of growing to maturity, the company announces that Okja has been awarded the honor of “best super-pig.” It’s all a ruse, though, and the company wants to move Okja from Mija’s farm to New York for (unbeknownst to the world) experimentation and eventual slaughter. Mirando’s CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton) arranges for Mija to travel to New York to be with Okja. However, the plot thickens when the ALF (Animal Liberation Front) kidnaps Okja to expose Mirando, sending the film down a path of much greater moral weight.
110m
Genre
Animation, Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery
Stars
Mana Ashida, Hiiro Ishibashi, Seishuu Uragami
Directed by
Ayumu Watanabe
Based on Daisuke Igarashi’s manga of the same name, Children of the Sea follows teenage girl Ruka. Estranged from both her mother and school friends, Ruka’s summer is looking like it’s going to be a bummer. That is until she starts spending more time at the aquarium where her dad works. While there, Ruka meets Umi and Sora, mysterious teenage brothers who were raised underwater by dugongs. The siblings are being studied by marine biologists to better understand their aquatic origins, while at the same time, a series of strange events begin unfolding. Oceanic oddities are occurring, like comets crashing into the sea and marine life mysteriously migrating to Japan’s waters and remaining there. As the story unfolds, it becomes evident that Ruka, Umi, and Sora share some kind of mysterious connection, which could be the cause of the marine phenomena. Ayumu Watanabe’s animated adaptation of Igarashi’s manga is a feast for the eyes. Oceanic depths are deeply layered, vibrant, and filled with life — not to mention the rich character work. Mana Ashida does a particularly amazing job as Ruka. As the plot thickens, so does Ruka’s drive and curiosity — and we’re right there with her.
104m
Genre
Animation, Drama, Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Stars
Mirai Shida, Natsuki Hanae, Koichi Yamadera
Directed by
Junichi Sato, Tomotaka Shibayama
Have you ever wanted to be a cat? A Whisker Away explores this wish come true and the consequences the transformation presents. Our story is led by Miyo Sasaki, a teenager living in Tokoname, dealing with her adolescence and pining for her school crush, Kento Hinode. Much to Miyo’s dismay, Kento is always turning down her advances. But love conquers all, especially when Miyo receives a magic Noh mask that turns her into a cat named Tarō. As a feline, Miyo begins making visits to Kento’s residence, where he immediately takes to his new whiskered visitor. Over the course of the film, we learn more about Miyo and Kento’s families, livelihoods, fears, and secrets. As Miyo wears the mask more and more, she risks never being able to return to human form again and must decide if life as a cat is worth losing her humanity for. Directed by Junichi Sato and Tomotaka Shibayama, from a script by Mari Okada, A Whisker Away is an electrifying panorama of emotion like no other.
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