The Best Fantasy Movies Of All Time According To Rotten Tomatoes

To be fair, lots of Disney films (and animated classics in general) could've made this list. But it's hard to argue with the critics here. 1991's Beauty and the Beast, a staple of Disney's pre-Pixar renaissance (a period that includes 1989's The Little Mermaid and 1994's The Lion King), is as good as animation, and cinema, gets. Based on both the 1740 short story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, and the equally great French film from 45 years earlier, this animated classic won overwhelming critical acclaim upon release — and for good reason. 

It's the story of Belle, a young French girl who's captured by, and who falls in love with, a reclusive beast who only has until the last petal falls from a magical rose to fall in love himself and revert back to human form; otherwise, like Shrek's Fiona, he'll stay a beast forever. Meanwhile, the egomaniacal Gaston has the locals in Belle's town convinced she's in terrible danger, and leads them on a quest to kill the beast so he can have Belle to himself. Also, there's a living candlestick whose best friend is a clock, and a teapot with a cup for a son, and a walking chest of drawers and... you know what? This all looks really stupid when it's written out, so it's probably best to just go see the movie. But we all know you already have. Over and over again.

All three Lord of the Rings films were fantastic, but you really can't beat The Two Towers. We kick things off after a rather bittersweet ending to 2001's The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Boromir died, Frodo struck out alone, Sam nearly drowned getting to him, and Merry and Pippin were captured by orcs. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli head out not to escort Frodo to Mordor, but instead to save the other two hobbits. Their journey leads them to a resurrected Gandalf and into Rohan, which is besieged by the forces of the evil wizard Saruman (who's working for the Big Bad, Sauron). 

Meanwhile, bumbling hobbits Merry and Pippin manage to convince a group of walking, talking (and rather apathetic) trees to take the fight to Saruman after he slaughtered their brethren in a deforestation binge. Further east, Frodo and Sam capture the Ring-obsessed Gollum and force him to guide them to Mordor, only to get caught themselves by foot soldiers from Gondor who mistake them for spies and plan to turn them in. There's more than enough world-class fantasy filmmaking for fans to sink their teeth into. But nothing matches the jaw-dropping spectacle that is the ferocious, desperate, and terrifying Battle of Helm's Deep. It doesn't quite surpass Saving Private Ryan's opening Omaha Beach sequence on the list of all-time greatest battle scenes, but it came damn close, and hasn't really been equaled since.

It's been pointed out that, like the books on which they're based, the Harry Potter movies grew up with their stars and audience. The Sorcerer's Stone is pretty much a kiddie flick, but by the time we got to the second half of The Deathly Hallows, things have changed. Simply put, this is a war movie. Albus Dumbledore has been dead for a while now, Snape has (seemingly) joined the Death Eaters, and Voldemort, now on to Harry, Ron and Hermione's quest to rid the world of his horcruxes, plans to kill Potter and crush Hogwarts into dust. It's violent, dark, truly scary in parts and seemingly hopeless in others. And yet despite all the blood and rubble, it never loses touch with the simple message that made the franchise so magical in the first place: that with courage and the help of friends, good can always triumph over evil. Maybe that's not always true in the real world. But The Deathly Hallows Part 2 invites us into a place where even a small bit of hope makes loss and suffering worth enduring. And you know what? Movies like this may just inspire their viewers to create a world more consistent with that idea. Isn't that what art is all about?

Nobody in the history of film (other than maybe Walt Disney) has done more to legitimize animation than legendary Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. The mere mention of his name draws nods of reverence. There's a good reason for this, too: his anime films (1986's Castle in the Sky, 1988's My Neighbor Totoro, and 1997's Princess Mononoke among them) are consistently boundary-pushing, breathtaking and all-around wonderful. But 2001's Spirited Away, about a young girl who encounters a world filled with the bizarre spirits (Kami) of Japanese Shinto folklore, has transcended even these achievements and is frequently referenced not only as one of the best animated features, but as one of the greatest films ever made. 

It's also one of the most successful animated movies, raking in $347 million on a $15-20 million budget and beating out Titanic to become the highest-grossing film ever released in Japan. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Oscars, and its influence hasn't diminished in the years since its release. In 2016, the BBC asked 177 film critics what the best movies of the 21st century have been, and Spirited Away beat out every animated feature to come in an impressive fourth place. The next year, the New York Times gave it a second place finish over the same time period.

If you were trying to determine the most influential film of all time, it'd be tough to beat The Wizard of Oz. The ruby red slippers. The Wicked Witch of the West. "There's no place like home." The cowardly lion. The scarecrow. "We're not in Kansas anymore." "I'm melting!" Seriously, SO many elements of this movie have become timeless staples of American pop culture that there really isn't another film that can compete (maybe Star Wars, but even that's a stretch). Honestly, this movie hardly even feels like a movie as much as an event, like Woodstock or the moon landing. 

Yeah, it lost out to Gone With the Wind (also directed by Victor Fleming; imagine having that kind of legacy) at the Academy Awards. But who needs an Oscar when you're the most viewed motion picture in history (as determined by the Library of Congress years after its 1956 TV broadcast)? The Wizard of Oz is a rather large deal, is the point, and critical acclaim for the film, both at the time and in the years since, has been absolutely nosebleeds high. We'd tell you to go see it, but if you haven't yet, you probably don't know what the internet is and will never come across this article.

Mary Poppins joins fewer than 1,000 films in global cinematic history by hitting the elusive, rarely seen 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and naturally closes out our list. Not even the most hard-to-please critic could bring themselves to besmirch this all-time Disney classic, maybe because it's been a staple of virtually every Western childhood since its 1964 release and they simply can't decouple it from the wonderful memories they made watching it as kids. 

It's worth noting that out of all the masterpieces Walt Disney released during his lifetime, Mary Poppins is the only one to have received a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. Also worth noting: that was only one of 13 nominations that year. It won five: Best Actress for Julie Andrews, Best Film Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Musical Score, and Best Original Song for "Chim Chim Cher-ee," which will now be stuck in your head until the sun explodes. Sorry about that. This film's shortcomings aren't just few and far between, but were turned into strengths. Dick Van Dyke's atrocious Cockney accent, for example, is hilarious and endearing, and the visual effects put the viewer in a visual time machine back to a golden era of film when you had no choice but to make silly decisions and run with them. The result is a Disney knockout.