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The best fantasy movies 2025 delivered didn’t come from the places you’d expect. A live-action dragon film outperformed every remake before it, a Guillermo del Toro gothic horror earned five Golden Globe nominations on Netflix, and a Disney fairy tale became the year’s most polarizing release. Meanwhile, a quiet A24 creature film reminded everyone what fantasy looks like without a single pixel of CGI.
2026 is stacking up differently. Christopher Nolan is turning Homer into an IMAX event, Greta Gerwig is rebuilding Narnia from scratch, and the witches of Practical Magic are coming back after nearly three decades. This list covers both released films and confirmed upcoming titles. Every pick is explained, and nothing made the cut without a reason.
Best Fantasy Movies 2025
1. How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure Release: June 13, 2025 Director: Dean DeBlois Cast: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler
The live-action adaptation that had every reason to fail. Remaking a beloved animated film shot-for-shot is a recipe for disaster, yet Dean DeBlois (who co-directed the original) pulled it off.
Mason Thames carries the film as Hiccup, and Gerard Butler returning as Stoick gives the whole thing an emotional anchor the trailers never promised.
The dragon work is the real achievement here. Toothless feels like a living creature, not a rendering exercise. The flight sequences hold up against anything in the original trilogy, and they hit differently on a real-world scale.
$636 million worldwide and a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not every Disney-era remake justifies its existence, but this one earned its place. For more in this territory, see the Sci-Fi Fantasy Movies of 2024 and 2025 list.
2. Wicked: For Good (2025)
Genre: Fantasy, Musical Release: November 21, 2025 Director: Jon M. Chu Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jeff Goldblum
The second half of the Wicked adaptation picks up with Elphaba in exile, branded as the Wicked Witch while still fighting for the freedom of Oz’s silenced Animals. Glinda is preparing to marry Fiyero, and Dorothy’s arrival forces both witches into decisions that define them permanently.
It doesn’t hit with the same freshness as the first film. Sequels rarely do. But Cynthia Erivo’s performance elevates every scene she’s in. Her Elphaba is the definitive fantasy protagonist of the last five years, full stop.
$540 million worldwide. The biggest fantasy musical since the original cast recording went platinum. Erivo alone justifies the ticket.
3. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (2025)
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Gothic Horror Release: October 17, 2025 (theatrical) / November 7, 2025 (Netflix) Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz
Del Toro spent over a decade trying to make this film. The result is a gothic fantasy that treats Mary Shelley’s novel with the weight it deserves, not as horror spectacle but as a story about what it means to be made rather than born.
Jacob Elordi as the Creature is the performance of the year. The physicality alone would be enough, but he layers in a vulnerability that makes every scene land harder than it should. Oscar Isaac’s Victor Frankenstein is cold, obsessive, and deeply human at the same time.
85% on Rotten Tomatoes, five Golden Globe nominations including Best Picture. This is del Toro working at full capacity. If you’re drawn to darker genre work, the Best Mystery Series 2024-2025 list covers similar tonal territory on the TV side.
4. The Legend of Ochi (2025)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure Release: April 2025 Director: Isaiah Saxon Cast: Helena Zengel, Finn Wolfhard, Willem Dafoe
On the fictional island of Carpathia in the Black Sea, generations of inhabitants have hunted primate-like creatures called the Ochi.
When a farm girl named Yuri discovers a wounded baby Ochi, she defies everything she’s been taught and sets out to return it to its mountain home.
The creature work is entirely practical puppetry. No CGI. In 2025, that choice alone makes a statement. The Ochi feel alive in a way that digital creatures rarely manage, and the film’s handcrafted texture gives every frame a weight that polished blockbusters can’t replicate.
It calls back to The Dark Crystal and The Neverending Story. For this kind of film, that comparison is earned, not thrown around lightly.
5. Good Fortune (2025)
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy Release: October 2025 Director: Aziz Ansari Cast: Keanu Reeves, Aziz Ansari, Seth Rogen, Sandra Oh
Keanu Reeves plays Gabriel, a well-meaning but fairly incompetent guardian angel assigned to help a struggling gig worker find purpose. His method: body-swap the guy with a wealthy venture capitalist. The consequences go sideways fast, but the film’s real strength is how it uses the fantasy setup to explore something honest about success and who gets to define it.
It flopped theatrically ($26 million against a $30 million budget) but found a massive audience on streaming in early 2026. At 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, this is a textbook sleeper hit. The kind of film people discover six months late and wonder why nobody told them sooner.
6. Snow White (2025)
Genre: Fantasy, Musical Release: March 21, 2025 Director: Marc Webb Cast: Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap
The most controversial Disney release in years, and not because of the film itself. Snow White arrived buried under culture war noise, boycott campaigns, and casting debates that dominated the conversation long before anyone saw a single frame.
The actual film is uneven. Rachel Zegler has the vocal talent and screen presence to carry this, but the script can’t decide whether it wants to modernize the fairy tale or preserve it. The result pleases neither camp fully.
$206 million worldwide against a $240-270 million budget makes it a commercial disappointment. But buried under the discourse, there’s a competent fairy tale fantasy with strong production design and a standout villain turn from Gal Gadot. Whether that’s enough depends on what you came looking for.
7. Freakier Friday (2025)
Genre: Fantasy, Comedy Release: August 8, 2025 Director: Nisha Ganatra Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Julia Butters
Body-swap films live or die on chemistry, and Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan still have it. Twenty-two years after the original, Freakier Friday proves that the magic (literally) between these two hasn’t faded.
The fantasy mechanics are familiar: a mystical trigger forces characters into each other’s bodies, chaos follows, lessons are learned. Nothing here reinvents the formula. But the execution is sharp enough that it doesn’t need to.
$153 million against a $45 million budget. The highest-grossing comedy of 2025 domestically. Nostalgia got people into seats, but the performances kept them there.
Most Anticipated Fantasy Movies 2026
8. The Odyssey (2026)
Genre: Fantasy, Epic Release: July 17, 2026 Director: Christopher Nolan Cast: Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal
Christopher Nolan adapting Homer is either going to define a decade of filmmaking or collapse under its own ambition. He’s shooting on IMAX film, and the source material gives him gods, monsters, and the most famous journey home ever written.
The cast reads like a fantasy draft of Hollywood’s strongest actors.
After Oppenheimer proved he can anchor deeply human stories within massive frameworks, The Odyssey feels like a natural next step. Just at a much bigger scale.
If it works, this is the fantasy event of the decade. If it doesn’t, you’re still watching.
9. The Magic Faraway Tree (2026)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Family Release: March 27, 2026 (UK) / August 21, 2026 (US) Director: Ben Gregor Cast: Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Rebecca Ferguson, Nicola Coughlan, Judi Dench
Based on Enid Blyton’s classic book series, three siblings discover a tree that leads to constantly changing magical worlds.
Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Rebecca Ferguson, and Judi Dench don’t normally show up in the same family fantasy film. That alone signals the production is aiming higher than a standard children’s adaptation.
No gritty reboot. No dark twist. Just a magical tree and the worlds waiting at the top. In an era where every fantasy property gets reimagined as something edgier, that simplicity feels refreshing.
10. Practical Magic 2 (2026)
Genre: Fantasy, Romance Release: September 11, 2026 Director: Susanne Bier Cast: Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, Joey King, Maisie Williams, Stockard Channing
Twenty-eight years after the original, the Owens family returns. Sally’s daughter begins uncovering dark family secrets and developing abilities of her own.
Based on Alice Hoffman’s 2021 novel The Book of Magic, the sequel brings back the original cast while adding a new generation of witches.
The original became a cult classic because it treated witchcraft as a family inheritance rather than a superpower. Something mundane and magical at the same time. If the sequel maintains that tone, it connects with both the original audience and a new one.
A legacy sequel with the original cast intact, based on strong source material. That combination doesn’t guarantee quality, but it’s a better starting point than most revivals get. If the supernatural side of things interests you, the Supernatural Series List covers similar territory on the TV side.
11. The Bride! (2026)
Genre: Dark Fantasy, Gothic Romance Release: March 6, 2026 Director: Maggie Gyllenhaal Cast: Christian Bale, Jessie Buckley, Penélope Cruz, Jake Gyllenhaal, Annette Bening
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s take on the Bride of Frankenstein is loud, discordant, and deliberately abrasive. Christian Bale disappears into Frankenstein’s monster, but the real discovery is Jessie Buckley in a dual role that demands both physicality and emotional precision.
The film divided critics sharply. Some called it electrifying, others found it clunky and overwrought. It flopped at the box office ($24 million against $90 million), and test screenings reportedly pushed the release from 2025 to 2026.
Not a safe film. It swings hard and misses as often as it connects. But when it connects, particularly in Buckley’s scenes, there’s nothing else like it in 2026’s fantasy lineup.
12. Jumanji: Open World (2026)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure Release: December 25, 2026 Director: Jake Kasdan Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Kevin Hart, Danny DeVito
The Jumanji reboot series wraps up with its third and final installment. This time, the game avatars break out into the real world, flipping the franchise’s core premise. The full original cast returns, and the film carries a Robin Williams tribute that reportedly anchors the emotional climax.
Portal fantasy works best when the rules are clear and the stakes feel personal. The first two reboot films understood that. Whether the finale can stick the landing with a premise reversal is the real question.
Christmas Day 2026 release, positioned against Dune: Part Three. Sony clearly believes this franchise still has pull.
13. Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew (2027)
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure Release: February 12, 2027 (pushed from 2026) Director: Greta Gerwig Cast: Emma Mackey, Carey Mulligan, Daniel Craig, Meryl Streep
Originally planned for late 2026, Greta Gerwig’s Narnia adaptation moved to early 2027. It’s included here because the anticipation building through 2026 is inseparable from this era’s fantasy conversation.
The Magician’s Nephew is the origin story of Narnia itself: the creation of the world, the first appearance of Aslan, the arrival of the White Witch. It’s the most visually ambitious book in the series and the perfect starting point for a fresh adaptation.
Gerwig directing Narnia after Barbie is a pairing nobody predicted. Netflix is giving it a full theatrical release (a first for the platform), and the cast includes Daniel Craig and Meryl Streep alongside Emma Mackey. This is not a small bet.
Where Fantasy Stands Right Now
2025 proved that live-action fantasy doesn’t need a shared universe or a $300 million budget to matter. A practical puppetry film from A24 earned more critical respect than most blockbusters. A del Toro gothic horror landed five Golden Globe nominations on a streaming platform. A dragon remake outperformed the original’s legacy. The range was wider than any single studio planned for.
2026 looks different but equally loaded. Nolan is betting on Homer, Gerwig is betting on Narnia, and Practical Magic is betting that 28 years of nostalgia still carries weight. Whether all of these deliver remains open, but the ambition alone makes this a period worth paying attention to.
This list will be updated as release dates shift and new titles get confirmed.
All promotional images used in this article belong to their respective production companies and distributors. They are used here solely for editorial commentary and review purposes.
