There’s good news and bad news for fantasy movie fans who subscribe to Netflix. The good news is that Netflix recently premiered an original fantasy movie, Damsel, starring Stranger Things‘ Millie Bobby Brown. The bad news is that the selection of fantasy flicks on Netflix is thinner than ever. The only recent arrivals of note besides Damsel are the 2005 remake of King Kong and Legion.
Netflix apparently doesn’t believe in catering to fantasy fans enough to give them a wide variety of options. There are some good options, as laid out below in our roundup of the best fantasy movies on Netflix. However, this is a genre that badly needs a refresh from Netflix, even if it means adding more films from other studios.
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.
Damsel (2024) new
What if Stranger Things’ Eleven had to fight a dragon without her powers. Princess Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) doesn’t have to imagine that scenario in Damsel, as it’s actually happening to her because she believed in love out of a fairy tale. As soon as she was offered the chance to marry Prince Henry (Nick Robinson), Elodie thought she was getting a happily ever after.
Perhaps Elodie would have been happy with some other prince. As for Henry, he and his mother, Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright), set up the marriage just to use Elodie as a sacrifice to a dragon. Elodie may be a bit naïve, but she’s not taking this lightly. She may not be a warrior, but Elodie is willing to pick up a sword and do whatever it takes to survive.
King Kong (2005) new
After making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson’s next passion project was a remake of King Kong. Unlike the more recent movies in Legendary’s MonsterVerse, Jackson’s take on King Kong retains the 1930s setting of the original film, while giving its characters a bit more depth. Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody star as actress Ann Darrow and screenwriter Jack Driscoll, respectively, both of whom find themselves falling in love with each other during an expedition to Skull Island.
Filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black) is determined to make a monster movie with the real monsters that live on the island. But he didn’t count on King Kong, a giant ape that takes a liking to Ann. Carl goes past the point of obsession to bring Kong back to New York, and he doesn’t care how many people get killed along the way.
Legion (2010) new
God may have turned his back on humanity, but the archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) refuses to give up in Legion. This postapocalyptic allegory features Adrianne Palicki as Charlie, a waitress who is pregnant with humanity’s savior, and Lucas Black as Jeep Hanson, the man who loves Charlie regardless of the fact that her baby isn’t his.
Michael meets the young couple at a dinner that is soon besieged by angels and possessed people. Michael already gave up his wings to fight by their side, but that renders him far less powerful than his fellow angel, Gabriel (Kevin Durand), who has come to murder Charlie and her baby.
Jurassic Park (1993)
At the height of his career, Steven Spielberg regularly directed blockbuster flicks. Jurassic Park was by far Spielberg’s most successful film, largely thanks to the very convincing mixture of animatronic and CGI dinosaurs. Sam Neill stars as Dr. Alan Grant, with Laura Dern as Alan’s girlfriend, Dr. Ellie Sattler, and Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm.
This unlikely trio have been invited to a remote island by Dr. John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), who reveals that he and his scientists have successfully cloned dinosaurs for his new theme park. But if Hammond wanted approval for his plans, he should have had tighter security. Because when the dinosaurs escape from captivity, the humans in the park become their prey.
Monster Run (2020)
Monsters are all too real in Monster Run, and that’s something that a young woman named Ji Mo (Jessie Li) has tried to deny for most of her life. After learning that she can see monsters, Ji Mo is only able to escape being imprisoned in an asylum by pretending that she can not. Instead, she simply tries to live an ordinary life until she runs into a monster hunter, Meng (Shawn Yue).
Once Ji Mo and Meng come together, she can no longer deny that monsters are real. Ji Mo also learns that she has a destiny to fulfill, if she can live long enough to make it happen.
Troll (2022)
Troll is a Norwegian fantasy that depicts an unusual emergence of a mythical creature in the modern world. As a young girl, Professor Nora Tidemann (Ine Marie Wilmann) was told by her father, Tobias Tidemann (Gard B. Eidsvold), that trolls may be real. Unfortunately, Tobias’ academic career was ended over these beliefs. But in the present, Tobias is vindicated when a gigantic troll is discovered in Norway before it goes on a rampage.
Since nothing the Norwegian army can throw at the troll manages to slow it down, it falls to Nora, Tobias, and their colleague, Andreas Isaksen (Kim Falck) to either find a way to communicate with the troll or to permanently end the threat that it represents.
Roald Dahl's Matilda the Musical (2022)
Wendell & Wild (2022)
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
The School for Good and Evil (2022)
Slumberland (2022)
Nightbooks (2021)
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.Super Me (2019)
Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
I Lost My Body (2019)
Bright (2017)
Fullmetal Alchemist (2017)
Okja (2017)
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.
A Whisker Away (2020)
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