The Best Fantasy Movies Of 2019 That Nobody Is Talking About

Aniara tells the story of a group of passengers aboard a giant spaceship — the Aniara — on a three-week voyage from Earth to Mars. After colliding with space debris, it's knocked off course, and hope for reaching its destination dwindles. The film focuses primarily on Mimaroben (Emelie Jonsson), a custodian at an A.I. spa that allows passengers to experience memories of Earth prior to its destruction. The further Aniara's story progresses, the harder it becomes for the ship's passengers to maintain their sanity.

Based on Harry Martinson's science fiction poem from 1956, Aniara's main focus is less on humanity's survival, and more on humanity's ability to destroy everything around it. The film's co-writer/director, Pella Kågerman, told Inverse that the film was her version of the Apocalypse. "I believe that this is actually what the Apocalypse looks like," she said. "We are risking Earth to become uninhabitable for us and lots of other species." And while the film may not stay completely in line with the poem it's based on, Martinson's potent ending remains intact. For Kågerman, Aniara calls its audience not just to address the threat of climate change, but to make the most of our time on Earth.

There have been plenty of films that have explored the relationship between human and machine throughout the years — 1968's 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1984's The Terminator, even the Star Wars films. Many of them focus on the dangers of artificial intelligence. I Am Mother takes something of a different approach, and then turns it on its head.

Daughter (played for most of the film by Clara Rugaard) has spent her entire life in the care of Mother (Rose Byrne), a robot designed to repopulate the Earth after a war has wiped out humanity. Unexpectedly, Daughter comes into contact with Woman (Hilary Swank), an outsider who claims to know details of the war that puts Mother in a much different light. 

I Am Mother draws from several types of stories, something its director, Grant Sputore, told Bloody Disgusting is intentional — mostly. "If you were examining the DNA of this film, I think you'd find strands of Alien, Terminator, and Moon, for sure," he said. "Some of that is conscious, some of it isn't." Regardless, the film keeps you guessing up until the very end, making you wonder who we can trust when we're the ones responsible for our own destruction.

If there's one film on this list that really screams fantasy, The Head Hunter is it. The premise is simple: a man (Christopher Rygh) who hunts monsters and takes their heads as trophies sets out to kill the one that took his daughter's life. The Head Hunter has all the typical elements required of a fantasy film — for starters, there's a great quest on horseback in medieval armor. Plus, actual orc-like monsters abound. And whatever the film lacks in unique story elements, it more than makes up for with its visuals.

The Head Hunter is one of those movies you go to watch just to get caught up in its world. Co-writers Kevin Stewart and Jordan Downey (who also directed) told Horror Geek Life that they were inspired by films like 1981's Quest for Fire and 2015's The Witch in terms of visual style. Stewart called Quest for Fire "an incredible movie that takes visual storytelling to the extreme," which the duo turned to on account of its "similar pace and mood with little to no dialogue."

It's hard to believe the same man who made Trainspotting, Sunshine, and 28 Days Later would direct a film with so fanciful a premise as a world that's forgotten the Beatles, but here we are. Director Danny Boyle's Yesterday takes place in an alternate sort of reality, where after a global blackout, a struggling musician named Jack (Himesh Patel) wakes up to discover that the Fab Four never existed. He still knows their whole songbook by heart, but no one else remembers a single tune. His immediate course of action? Make their music his own.

Yesterday is something of a departure for Boyle — it's a little more polished than the rest of his often-gritty filmography, and the situation isn't quite so dire. But the combination of Boyle's direction and a screenplay by Richard Curtis (Love Actually) proves charming for anyone willing to go along for the ride, and Patel is an incredible choice as the lead. Boyle told Variety that it was one of those casting moments "where you just go, 'Oh my god, that's him.'" He's charming, even while he's stealing someone else's musical career. Which brings us to the most important part of Yesterday — it has one killer soundtrack.

Starfish takes the end of the world and sets it to music. Aubrey Parker (Virginia Gardner) is left alone, in her dead best friend's apartment, with nothing but a mix tape that might save her. The film is a little like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, if Charlie Kaufman had dealt in apocalyptic monsters instead of lost loves. 

Starfish's writer and director, A.T. White, is a musician as well, so it's little wonder music plays such a large role in the film. White and his cinematographer, Alberto Bañares, have crafted a world so interesting and unique with Starfish that it's hard to classify it as just a single genre. Part horror, part science fiction/fantasy, and part drama, Starfish's many elements come together to create something truly beautiful. 

But the most surprising thing about the film is that it's based on a true story. White told Dread Central that he wrote it at a point in his life where he was deeply depressed, isolating himself in an effort to turn out a screenplay while mourning the death of a friend — an experience that became the foundation for Aubrey's story. Starfish is really more of a cinematic exploration into human emotion, just with a fantasy twist. 

Oh, and White is donating 100% of his profits from the film to cancer research, giving you yet another reason to check it out.