The danger of a first date film is that the wrong choice becomes the story of the evening. Pick something with enough texture to be interesting, but not so heavy that it needs processing.
The 80s and 90s are where a lot of cinema's DNA was written. Films that set the templates still running today.
The best fantasy isn't escapism. It's a different lens on the same world — clearer for being unfamiliar.
Bill Parrish has it all - success, wealth and power. Days before his 65th birthday, he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger, Joe Black, who soon reveals himself as Death. In exchange for extra time, Bill agrees to serve as Joe's earthly guide. But will he regret his choice when Joe unexpectedly falls in love with Bill's beautiful daughter Susan?
This colorful adventure tells the story of an impetuous mermaid princess named Ariel who falls in love with the very human Prince Eric and puts everything on the line for the chance to be with him. Memorable songs and characters -- including the villainous sea witch Ursula.
Drawn from elements of West African folk tales, it depicts how a newborn boy, Kirikou, saves his village from the evil witch Karaba.
In a post-apocalyptic world, the residents of an apartment above the butcher shop receive an occasional delicacy of meat, something that is in low supply. A young man new in town falls in love with the butcher's daughter, which causes conflicts in her family, who need the young man for other business-related purposes.
On the run after committing murder, an accountant encounters a strange Native American man who prepares him for his journey into the spiritual world.
The fantasy films that endure are the ones rooted in genuine emotion. The magic is the vehicle; the story is always about something human.
Frustrated with babysitting on yet another weekend night, Sarah, a teenager with an active imagination, summons the Goblins to take her baby stepbrother away. When little Toby actually disappears, Sarah must follow him into a fantastical world to rescue him from the Goblin King. Guarding his castle is the labyrinth itself, a twisted maze of deception, populated with outrageous characters and unknown dangers.
A unicorn learns from a riddle-speaking butterfly that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the monstrous Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly's words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard.
Geeky teenager David and his popular twin sister, Jennifer, get sucked into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom called "Pleasantville," and find a world where everything is peachy keen all the time. But when Jennifer's modern attitude disrupts Pleasantville's peaceful but boring routine, she literally brings color into its life.
Ash, a handsome, shotgun-toting, chainsaw-armed department store clerk, is time warped backwards into England's Dark Ages, where he romances a beauty and faces legions of the undead.
When siblings Judy and Peter discover an enchanted board game that opens the door to a magical world, they unwittingly invite Alan -- an adult who's been trapped inside the game for 26 years -- into their living room. Alan's only hope for freedom is to finish the game, which proves risky as all three find themselves running from giant rhinoceroses, evil monkeys and other terrifying creatures.
Some films don't just tell stories — they change what stories can be. These are the ones that shifted what came after them.
A great fantasy film leaves you with that rare ache — a longing to return to a world that never existed.