Static Media
There is something about the dark fantasy movie genre that just isn’t easily replicated. While many a fantasy movie has transported audiences to new and expansive worlds with epic stories of big adventures, historically the genre has also been limited by both technology and budgets that restrain movies from achieving the potential of the stories being told.
The dark fantasy genre, however, often tells smaller scale stories inspired by fairy tales, focusing on eerie atmosphere, stellar creature and set design rather than VFX spectacle. Still, many dark fantasy movies have fantastic special effects that feel as grand and epic as big budget blockbusters. Even in animation, the dark fantasy genre has delivered some of the best and scariest works in the medium.
From the apogee of the genre in the 80s, to modern examples, this list pins down the 10 best dark fantasy movies out there.
10. Tigers Are Not Afraid
Shudder
The most recent entry on this list, “Tigers Are Not Afraid” makes a strong and lasting impression from its opening minutes. Directed by Issa López, it’s a spectacular dark fantasy right out of a fable, with uncompromising bleakness yet also a relentlessly hopeful spirit. This is a movie about survival, about the horrors the drug cartels inflict on the young and vulnerable in Mexico, and about the power of fantasy.
The film follows a young girl who, after her mother mysteriously goes missing, befriends a group of orphans who steal to survive. To deal with the harshness of their real world — one ruled by gangsters who trade in human lives as much as they do drugs, where families can be gone at the blink of an eye — the kids constantly tell each other fairy tales. When they accidentally get their hands on the cell phone of a powerful kingpin and hopeful elected official, they find themselves targets of dangerous killers. Combining supernatural horror with the horrors of reality, “Tigers Are Not Afraid” uses fantasy to speak to our reality. As Matt Donato’s review for /Film described it, this film is “provocative, poignantly impassioned and so very wired to the fragile fibers of human storytelling.”
9. The Witches
Warner Bros.
Nicolas Roeg, director of one of the best horror movies ever with “Don’t Look Now,” may not seem like the obvious choice to bring to life Roald Dahl’s novel for children “The Witches” — especially not a version produced by Jim Henson. And yet, he was the perfect filmmaker to bring to life the dark fantasy of the novel: the terror, the hope, and the relationship between Luke and his grandma.
The film follows an orphaned boy who stumbles upon a witch convention at a hotel he’s staying at with his grandma. When he is discovered, the Grand High Witch turns him into a mouse, and it is up to Luke to stop her before she turns all of the world’s children into mice. What makes this one of the best all-ages horror movies of the ’90s comes down to two reasons. First, there’s Anjelica Huston’s delightfully wicked performance, a cartoonishly evil and mesmerizing witch you can’t keep your eyes out of whose every scene is filled with dread and fun. Then there’s the elaborate puppetry and set design by Jim Henson and his special effects team. Sure, the Creature Shop’s work on the Grand High Witch is spectacular, but equally awe-inspiring is the work done in bringing the audience down to the perspective of a little boy-mouse in a world of giant furniture. “The Witches” is a movie full of whimsy, fun, and imagery that will scar you for life.
8. Sleepy Hollow
Paramount Pictures
Tim Burton has made a whole career out of using the dark fantasy aesthetic, telling stories that feel like fairy tales with exquisite production designs that twist our reality to a fantasy world through practical effects and lavish set decoration. Though many Burton movies fall into the dark fantasy category, his best entry into the genre is “Sleepy Hollow,” the 1999 reimagining of the classic tale by Washington Irving. The film follows a police constable uncovering a conspiracy involving the small village of Sleepy Hollow and a headless hessian horseman who just loves to behead people. It’s part Hammer Horror picture and part gothic fantasy, combining slasher-worthy kills with out-of-this-world atmosphere, as this particular retelling of the story involves witches, deals with the devil, and spooky forests.
When it comes to sheer vibes alone, this is one of Tim Burton’s best movies ever, one that simply looks astonishing thanks in part to Rick Heinrichs and Peter Young’s Oscar-winning art direction, and beautiful cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki. The film features a murderer’s row of talent, not just behind the camera, but also in front of it: the stellar cast includes Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, and Christopher Walken. And to think, we have the cancellation of “Superman Lives” to thank for the existence of “Sleepy Hollow.”
7. Vampire Hunter D
Toho
“Vampire Hunter D” is one of the earliest examples of OVA (original video animation) producing bold works of anime that could be as violent and mature as the creators wanted. This is one of the best anime horror films of all time: a movie oozing with style, with fantastic production and character design that still hold up to this day, from the look of the vampires to the unique castles and landscapes.
The film follows the titular D, a vampire hunter wandering a post-nuclear wasteland where humanity is terrorized by the ruling vampire nobility and other wandering demons and mutants. D is hired to save a woman from a powerful vampire noble who wants to make the woman his new bride. Oh, and D also has a parasite in his left hand in the shape of a human face. “Vampire Hunter D” is a delightful genre soup: part Western, part post-apocalyptic tale, part gothic horror, part fantasy, part sci-fi movie (it’s set in the year 12,090 AD). There are cyborg horses, vampires with psychic powers, and much more. Even after so many years, it remains a stunning piece of dark fantasy and genre storytelling.
6. The NeverEnding Story
Warner Bros.
Wolfgang Petersen’s adaptation of Michael Ende’s “The NeverEnding Story” is many things. It’s a movie with dazzling special effects and a myriad of visually stunning and inventive creatures, and a poignant story about how literature (specially fantasy) can help us escape from the hardships of reality as well as help us remember the good things in life. But it’s arguably best remembered as the movie that traumatized an entire generation of kids.
Though very much a fantasy film, “The NeverEnding Story” is a great example of how dark fantasy can deliver the same thrills, hope, joy, and whimsy as lighter fantasy tales, while also taking the audience to some very, well, dark territory. The story follows a young kid, Bastian, who discovers a magical book telling the tale of a young warrior tasked with saving the land of Fantasia from an all-consuming empty void called the Nothing. While arguably the most memorable scene is the trauma-inducing death of Artax, a formative experience for many children, the kind of dark fantasy horror that “The NeverEnding Story” nails is best exemplified in the film’s ending when the entire world of Fantasia is sucked up by the Nothing’s raging storm of negative emotions. (Fortunately, it gets revived by Bastian.)
As /Film’s BJ Colangelo put it, the movie is best classified as “baby’s first existential crisis.” It tells us the world is scary, and it’s okay to be afraid, but our lives don’t have to be dominated by the Nothing.
5. The Secret of NIMH
MGM
Don Bluth is simply a master at capturing melancholy in animated projects. The best example of this is “The Secret of Nimh,” a bold statement of a movie that showed American audiences that there was more to mainstream studio animation than Disney. This adaptation of Robert C. O’Brien’s “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” is both whimsical and alarmingly dark, an adventure filled with wonder and sheer horror, the source of many childhood nightmares and one of the scariest animated movies of all time.
The film follows a widowed mouse who lives on a farm with her children. After her son falls sick, she sets out to seek the help of a colony of hyper-intelligent rats who have a mysterious connection to her late husband. Behind the simple premise lies a dark fantasy full of monsters, animal experimentation, and political intrigue. The combination of traditional 2D animation and rotoscoping adds to the horror and the uncanny sense of eerieness that fills the entire film.
4. Coraline
Focus Features
It’s not easy to make an animated movie that’s scary, but “Coraline” achieves by aiming directly at adult fears. Neil Gaiman once said that children react to the story as an adventure, while adults get disturbed by seeing a child in such danger. This film follows the titular Coraline, an adventurous 11-year-old who discovers a hidden door in her new home, which leads to an idealized fantasy version of her life. Soon enough, she discovers that there’s a big price to live in a fantasy, one full of horrors and needles.
Like most dark fantasy stories, “Coraline” is structured as a fairy tale. It’s a story about a child who gets lost, then encounters a witch who tempts them with a better life, before trying to kill them. Directed by Henry Selick and produced by Laika, the film uses the medium of stop motion animation to sell the slow, creeping horror of the other world Coraline visits. The animation style adds to the uncanniness of the world, the feeling that something isn’t quite right, that the people may look normal, but hide something sinister. It blends whimsy and darkness in a way that invites audiences of all ages, but still exposes them to many horrors — including the very relatable horror of growing up.
3. Princess Mononoke
Studio Ghibli
Many of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies can be considered dark fantasy, from “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” to “Spirited Away,” but none exemplify the best the genre has to offer quite like “Princess Mononoke.” We have a fantasy world of gods and demons and spirits, a prince that undergoes a transformation, a boar monster, a romance, themes about the destruction of nature, and some of the darkest imagery in a Ghibli movie. Put all that together you have a recipe for a great dark fantasy movie.
The film resembles a fairy tale in its story, which follows a young prince who accidentally gets involved in a fight between forest spirits and a village of humans who are exploiting the resources of the earth. The relationship between Ashita and San resembles that of the protagonists of “Beauty and the Beast.” The many critters and supernatural creatures that populate “Princess Mononoke” make it feel like a fantasy adventure, one with telepathic wolves and demons, but the tone and use of dark imagery definitely veers toward the dark fantasy genre. Indeed, the film’s portrayal of nature’s wrath as a source of horror even served as inspiration for “Godzilla Minus One.”
Like the best dark fantasy tales, the commentary and themes of “Princess Mononoke” are not clear-cut, nor does the film offer a clean happy ending. The film’s characters have nuance and complexity that traditional fairy tales don’t often have — like Lady Eboshi, the antagonist of the film, being portrayed as a complex individual who is doing bad things but to accomplish something good — and the ending offers no simple solution or answers. There cannot be a happy ending when nature and humans fight, and the film leaves the dispute unresolved, focusing instead on the things worth fighting for despite the darkness.
2. The Dark Crystal
Universal Pictures
Every movie is a miracle, but there is truly something miraculous about “The Dark Crystal.” After “The Muppet Movie” proved to be a huge hit, Jim Henson finally got to achieve his dream of pushing puppetry to new heights with a bold dark fantasy film with an unprecedented level of realism for its characters — a movie that starred not a single human, yet felt more real than most movies today. “The Dark Crystal” follows a rather conventional hero’s journey: it’s a fantasy tale revolving around Jen and Kira, two Gelflings who embark on a quest to restore a broken crystal with enough power to bring balance to the world of Thra and bring down the ruling, monstrous Skeksis.
The first thing to notice about “The Dark Crystal” is how big and expansive the world feels. This movie has all the makings of a fantasy epic, the worldbuilding of franchises like “Lord of the Rings,” and the visuals to boot. Just look at how many fantasy names the movie throws at you every few minutes, how much lore and history the film barely hints at. And, of course, here’s the groundbreaking animatronics that make this story feel alive despite no living beings appearing in it. Add in some stunning production design and art direction and you have one of the most beautiful-looking movies of the ’80s.
Sadly, audiences at the time didn’t know how to react to the film when it opened, as it was a darker and more dramatic project than anything Henson had worked on, or that audiences were used to at the time that involved puppets. Still, “The Dark Crystal” lived on, inspiring one of the best fantasy TV shows of the past decade.
1. Pan’s Labyrinth
Warner Bros. Pictures
Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” is a movie that exists because of providence itself. The film scored del Toro his first Oscar nomination and it remains his magnum opus: a visually stunning, poignant dark fantasy about the loss of innocence, which uses fairy tale tropes and imagery to explore real tragedy and horror. The film follows a young girl who escapes the grim reality around her that is filled with death and dread by instead entering a world of forest fairies and magical creatures. In a way, this is del Toro’s take on Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro.” But rather than play coy about the hardships the protagonist is evading, “Pan’s Labyrinth” spends as much time building the fantasy world and its creatures as it does showing the horrors and brutalities of Franco’s Spain.
“Pan’s Labyrinth” is a movie about growing up in uncertain times and learning to face the horrors of reality, and it’s populated with unique and stunning creatures. Whether it’s the terrifying Pale Man or the Faun who gives the movie its name, the film’s fantasy world is a marvel to look at and its creatures are unforgettable works of filmmaking wizardry. “Pan’s Labyrinth” is not only the pinnacle of what the dark fantasy genre has to offer, but is one of the best movies ever made (as chosen by us).
