The fantasy movie genre is one that takes the viewer to a world of imagination that reached beyond their reality.
It has themes that are based on magic and supernatural events.
They can include folklore, myths and worlds dreamt up in a screenwriter’s mind or in other literature.
This genre is often close to speculative fiction, Sci-Fi and horror and they can sometimes overlap.
These films tend to have some elements that focus on magic, wonder and escapism rather than being based in reality and the world that surrounds the viewer.
The movies portray worlds of make-believe and fantastic ideas.
Fantasy Movies
Fantasy movies take viewers to onscreen worlds that live in the minds of writers and dreamers.
They have many subgenres that are under the umbrella of fantasy.
The two most popular tend to be High Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery.
Both of these use some type of medieval style of setting along with wizards, magic and special creatures to suit such as world.
High Fantasy tends to be focused on character development with complex themes.
The hero is humble and from simple beginnings and the struggle in the movie will be clear between the good hero and the evil antagonist.
It becomes a battle.
Sword and sorcery are more focused on plot and action.
The battle is usually between a simple hero with power against an evil that is supernatural in their powers.
These films are also usually about good and evil in an epic struggle.
These can cross with other subgenres as well often falling under the cover of both High Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery.
The lines between subgenres can be very fluid.
Contemporary fantasy movies are ones where the real world is impacted by the fantasy world.
Magic and supernatural happenings occur in a place that any viewer could be from in the secular world.
These cross over other genres as well.
An example of this type of contemporary fantasy film would be Mary Poppins (1964).
The film focuses on a real-world British family home that is impacted by the magical fantasy world of Mary Poppins.
This film also crosses into live-action genre and animation along with being a musical.
it covers a wide range of various genres but is ultimately contemporary fantasy.
It is a world built on imagination and magic rather than science and that world interacts with a real-world family.
Dark fantasy movies are ones that bring dark and scary themes into the fantasy film.
They can have elements that are dark, gloom focused and can have a feeling of horror for the viewers.
This can be part of contemporary fantasy where supernatural things of horror affect the real world, or it can be a supernatural horror where things are going on in other worlds that are not the viewer’s own.
The dark and brooding theme of these movies is seen in all the subtypes.
This dark subgenre is one that crosses over into other film realms such as gothic movies or actual horror especially when dealing with the supernatural and death.
Movies such as Maleficent (2014) and The Last Witch Hunter (2015) are both examples of Dark fantasy.
Fairy Tale movies are ones that are based on the stories we are told as children.
They are folklore with stories of magic, princesses and evil queens, talking animals and monsters.
These films have been around for decades in both short and long-form.
There are small ones that have children’s stories such as The Three Pigs, then there are many put out by Disney such as Cinderella (1950) and Snow White (1937).
There are also ones that are more current and cross boundaries.
Maleficent is one that is not only a fairy tale but also is darker in nature.
Epic fantasy movies are based in a world that is fantasy and not a world the viewer is familiar with.
The movie will have a battle of good and evil, it has magic along with heroes and villains.
The story tends to be long and complex with the build-up that follows the hero and those he goes with.
The perfect epic movie is seen in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series.
It is of another world, unknown languages, magic and battles.
The hero traverses through not only the land but through multiple movies where the battle of good and evil carries on throughout.
Superhero fantasy is based on movies that moviemakers and scriptwriters have found in comic book lore.
Fantasy worlds and people, both hero and villain, that bring the supernatural into contact with the real world of the viewers.
These movies cross over into both epic and contemporary fantasy films as well.
The Avengers (2012) series of movies are an example of these types of film.
Fantasy movies are the ultimate film genre that lets viewers escape the world around them.
They can transport us into a world of magic, battles of good and evil and epic journeys to lands that go beyond much of what our imaginations will let us think about.
These movies are often more than one and the series keeps us entertained and engaged with worlds and the lives of their characters that have been brought out of the pages of books and the imaginations of screenwriters and storytellers.
