It’s not a good idea to live in a fantasy world 24/7. But it’s perfectly acceptable to spend roughly 90 minutes to two hours engrossed in a fantasy film. This is one of the few movie genres that isn’t bound by conventional rules and wisdom. In fantasy, almost anything goes, and if it can be imagined, it can be brought to life in a movie. Netflix has a pretty strong lineup of fantasy films to choose from, both from other studios and its ever-growing lineup of original movies. To help you find the fantasy flick that’s right for you, we’ve put together this list of the best fantasy movies on Netflix right now.
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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The Golden Compass2007 -
Dark Shadows2012
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Fast Color2019
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113m
Genre
Adventure, Fantasy
Stars
Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards
Directed by
Gábor Csupó
While HBO’s His Dark Materials is a better take on Philip Pullman’s novels, The Golden Compass has some genuine star power with its cast and big-budget effects. On an alternate Earth, Dakota Blue Richards stars as Lyra Belacqua, an orphan girl who is accompanied by her shape-changing dæmon, Pantalaimon (Freddie Highmore). When Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig), discovers proof of other worlds, Lyra finds herself drawn into the orbit of the enigmatic Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman). Thanks to the titular golden compass, Lyra finds what she needs to escape Coulter and she embarks on a quest to find her uncle and save some kidnapped children.
113m
Genre
Comedy, Fantasy
Stars
Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter
Directed by
Tim Burton
Tim Burton’s take on the gothic supernatural soap opera, Dark Shadows, is far more campy and humorous than the TV show ever was. Johnny Depp stars as Barnabas Collins, a man living in the 18th century who had the grave misfortune of rejecting the advances of a witch named Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green). Angelique arranges the death of Barnabas’ true love, Josette du Pres (Bella Heathcote), and curses him to live as a vampire. Centuries later, Barnabas awakens in 1972 and reunites with the surviving Collins family. Much to his surprise, their new governess, Victoria Winters (Heathcote), is the mirror image of Josette. And Angelique is still alive and planning her revenge.
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.
97m
Genre
Family, Animation, Fantasy, Action, Adventure
Stars
Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Jude Law
Directed by
Peter Ramsey
Do you think that the Avengers are the only super group of heroes? Then get ready for Rise of the Guardians’ team-up of Santa Claus, Jack Frost, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and the Sandman! Chris Pine lends his voice to Jack Frost, a young Guardian who has no memories of his life as a mortal. Nicholas St. North (Alec Baldwin), E. Aster Bunnymund (Hugh Jackman), Toothiana (Isla Fisher), and Sandy the Sandman recruit Jack to join their team. Unfortunately, Pitch Black (Jude Law) knows just how to manipulate Jack in order to erase the Guardians from existence one by one.
125m
Genre
Adventure, Fantasy, Drama
Stars
Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup
Directed by
Tim Burton
Tim Burton’s folksy fantasy is one that many of us can identify with. It’s the manifestation of an old man’s hyperbolic stories of his life. Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) has always told seemingly tall tales about his life as fact, a trait that has made his relationship with his son, William (Billy Crudup), difficult. But when Edward continues to tell these fantasy stories on his deathbed, William decides to finally investigate his father’s tales. As he does, he begins to finally understand his father after a lifetime of confusion.
102m
Genre
Fantasy, Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family
Stars
Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera
Directed by
Dean DeBlois
Thanks to mystifying deals between studios, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is the only installment of DreamWorks’ animated trilogy that is still on Netflix. Fortunately, it’s terrific, and you don’t need to know too much going into the story. Half a decade after the village of Berk made peace with the dragons, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his loyal Nightfury dragon, Toothless, encounter a new threat: Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). Drago wants to turn the world’s dragons into his personal army. Hiccup also finds an unexpected ally: His long-lost mother, Valka (Cate Blanchett). Valka’s dragon sanctuary may hold the key to victory over Drago, or it could give the warlord everything he wants in one swift move.
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]
Genre
Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Cast
Kandido Uranga, Uma Bracaglia, Eneko Sagardoy
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
Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Stars
Steve Buscemi, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mitchel Musso, Sam Lerner, Spencer Locke
Directed by
Gil Kenan
Ever seen a house you were worried was haunted? Did you think there were ghosts inside? Monsters? Maybe just some creepy psycho? Well, what if the house itself was the monster? That’s the kind of danger D.J. (Mitchel Musso) and his friends face in Monster House. After D.J.’s elderly neighbor Mr. Nebbercracker (Steve Buscemi) is brought to the hospital, the house starts inexplicably eating people. With D.J.’s parents gone for the weekend and the house next door making meals out of everyone from police officers to the babysitter’s drunk boyfriend, it’s up to D.J. and his friends Chowder and Jenny to embark on a scary adventure in this funny, scary, and family-friendly romp.
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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