These fantasy films were selected by the Moviepiq editorial team for a first date night in. Popularity and critic scores don't factor in here. Emotional fit does.
The best fantasy movies on a first date night in from the 2010s that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Includes The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Road...
A first date movie needs to do several things at once: be engaging enough to talk about, not so intense it kills the mood, and ideally leave you both with something to say when the credits roll.
In retrospect, the 2010s were a decade of quiet excellence - films doing serious work without demanding credit for it.
Great fantasy films don't ask you to suspend disbelief - they build worlds so vivid that disbelief simply evaporates.
Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit enjoying his quiet life, is swept into an epic quest by Gandalf the Grey and thirteen dwarves who seek to reclaim their mountain home from Smaug, the dragon.
Sixteen years ago, a mysterious masked ninja unleashes a powerful creature known as the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox on the Hidden Leaf Village Konoha, killing many people. In response, the Fourth Hokage Minato Namikaze and his wife Kushina Uzumaki, the Demon Fox's living prison or Jinchūriki, manage to seal the creature inside their newborn son Naruto Uzumaki. With the Tailed Beast sealed, things continued as normal. However, in the present day, peace ended when a group of ninja called the Akatsuki attack Konoha under the guidance of Tobi, the mysterious masked man behind Fox's rampage years ago who intends on executing his plan to rule the world by shrouding it in illusions.
When the pressure to be royal becomes too much for Mal, she returns to the Isle of the Lost where her archenemy Uma, Ursula's daughter, has taken her spot as self-proclaimed queen.
Following Smaug's attack on Laketown, Bilbo and the dwarves try to defend Erebor's mountain of treasure from others who claim it: the men of the ruined Laketown and the elves of Mirkwood. Meanwhile an army of Orcs led by Azog the Defiler is marching on Erebor, fueled by the rise of the dark lord Sauron. Dwarves, elves and men must unite, and the hope for Middle-Earth falls into Bilbo's hands.
A heroic version of Lex Luthor from an alternate universe appears to recruit the Justice League to help save his Earth from the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the League. What ensues is the ultimate battle of good versus evil in a war that threatens both planets and, through a devious plan launched by Batman's counterpart Owlman, puts the balance of all existence in peril.
What makes a fantasy film last isn't the worldbuilding - it's whether you care about the people inside that world.
In 1926, Newt Scamander arrives at the Magical Congress of the United States of America with a magically expanded briefcase, which houses a number of dangerous creatures and their habitats. When the creatures escape from the briefcase, it sends the American wizarding authorities after Newt, and threatens to strain even further the state of magical and non-magical relations.
Christopher Robin, the boy who had countless adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood, has grown up and lost his way. Now it's up to his spirited and loveable stuffed animals, Winnie The Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and the rest of the gang, to rekindle their friendship and remind him of endless days of childlike wonder and make-believe, when doing nothing was the very best something.
When innocent civilians begin committing unthinkable crimes across Metropolis, Gotham City and beyond, Batman must call upon mystical counterparts to eradicate this demonic threat to the planet; enter Justice League Dark. This team of Dark Arts specialists must unravel the mystery of Earth's supernatural plague and contend with the rising, powerful villainous forces behind the siege-before it's too late for all of mankind.
This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.
Maleficent and her goddaughter Aurora begin to question the complex family ties that bind them as they are pulled in different directions by impending nuptials, unexpected allies, and dark new forces at play.
The best suspense doesn't come from action - it comes from caring about what happens. These films make you care, then twist the knife.
The sign of a truly great fantasy is that you mourn it when it's over. These films create that feeling.
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