I remember people hating that movie, but I thought it was was not bad. But no chocobos IIRC.
Hmm, I never did my top 5.
If we count LOTR trilogy as one entry, and if we do not consider Star Wars as fantasy, then my top 5 would be:
TIme Bandits
The Princess Bride
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
LOTR Trilogy
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (juuuuust bumping Willow off the list.)
Baron Muchausen showing up a lot in this thread for a movie I haven’t heard of. Time to look into it. Same with Time Bandits actually. I’ve heard the name, but that’s it, other than this thread.
Edit: Ok, going through the thread again, no one else mentioned Muchausen, and only one other person mentioned Time Bandits.
I haven’t seen Ladyhawke since my mom took me to see it in the theater many years ago - I should see how it holds up!
Munchausen and Time Bandits are both from folks who were previously with Monty Python and both mix absurdist humor with fantasy. Both are very good IMO and if you have not seen them, definitely worth checking out. Just be aware there is a certain amount of inherent absurdity.
You probably shouldn’t oughta, especially if you have good memories from your youth. It is a VERY 1980s movie and should only be watched in or around 1985.
I’m inclined to call Munchausen a masterpiece. There are some slow parts, and Robin Williams might be too Robin Williams in it. But the number of fantastic things it puts in front of your eyes is almost second to none. (Uma Thurman counts as a hundred of them.)
Also, that girl went on to write and direct Women Talking!
“Are you flesh or are you spirit?”
“I am sorrow.”
Love that part.
I’ll admit I was soured a bit on it reading how traumatized the girl was by the filming process. It really left her with scars.
No Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Hmm…
Some others not mentioned, In roughly Chronological Order
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad - the best of the Sinbad movies with Harryhausen
Jason and the Argonauts - more Harryhausen
The Nightmare Before Christmas = quite amazing
Ever After - probably Drew Barrymore’s best movie, IMHO, and Female protagonists are lacking on these lists
Coraline - another favorite, another great female protagonist
The Princess Bride
Time Bandits
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The City of Lost Children
Stardust
The Lord of the Rings
Honorable mentions to The Green Knight, Willow, and The Neverending Story,
I started writing up a list here not realizing I had already done so! It was no different from the one I posted previously, with the addition of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and explaining why I didn’t include the whole HP series:
I will count the Lord of the Rings trilogy as one; my favorite was very much the first one, but the other two didn’t bring the entire thing down (though the last one was close for me with that overlong finale) [pretty much what I said the first time].
As for Harry Potter, the third was my absolute favorite; only listing this and not the entire series as I felt it kept going downhill after this one; not by a lot, but a little with each successive film, with the finale being a bit disappointing. It was also 7 films and by the 5th, I just wanted the story to wrap up. (Though, it could be I saw them each at release until the 4th, then waited until well after the last one released to do a several weekend marathon to rewatch the first three along with the rest).
[Why did I list “Hero” previously? I love that film, but is it fantasy?]