MOVIEPIQ · FANTASY · CURATED LIST

Best Fantasy Movies With Friends On A Friday From The 2000S That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity

The best fantasy movies with friends on a friday from the 2000s that will restore your faith in humanity. A hand-curated list of fantasy films for Moviepiq.

Friday night with friends is about energy. You want something that earns its place in the conversation — a film that people are still talking about on the way home.

The 2000s were a decade of formal ambition in genre filmmaking — studios were willing to fund challenging, adult-oriented work at a scale that feels rare today.

Great fantasy films don't ask you to suspend disbelief — they build worlds so vivid that disbelief simply evaporates. Below are ten fantasy films that transport you somewhere entirely new while saying something true about the world you already know.

1
2001 · ★★★★☆ 8.8/10

A meek Hobbit from the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the powerful One Ring and save Middle-earth from the Dark Lord Sauron.

2
2006 · ★★★★☆ 8.2/10

In post-Civil War Spain, a troubled girl escapes into a fantastical labyrinth, where a mysterious faun reveals that she is a lost princess.

3
1987 · ★★★★☆ 8.0/10

A grandfather reads a story to his sick grandson about a farmhand-turned-pirate who must rescue the woman he loves from a scheming prince.

4
2001 · ★★★★☆ 8.6/10

A sullen ten-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.

5
2017 · ★★★★☆ 7.3/10

A mute woman working as a janitor in a secret government laboratory falls in love with a mysterious aquatic creature.

The fantasy films that endure are the ones rooted in genuine emotion. The magic is the vehicle; the story is always about something human.

6
2003 · ★★★★☆ 8.0/10

A son tries to learn more about his dying father by piecing together the stories he told throughout his life.

7
2007 · ★★★★☆ 7.6/10

In a countryside town bordering on a magical kingdom, a young man makes a promise to his beloved to retrieve a fallen star.

8
1984 · ★★★★☆ 7.4/10

A troubled boy dives into a wondrous fantasy world through the pages of a mysterious book.

9
1986 · ★★★★☆ 7.3/10

Sixteen-year-old Sarah is given thirteen hours to solve a labyrinth and rescue her baby brother when her wish for him to be taken away is granted by the Goblin King.

10
1997 · ★★★★☆ 8.4/10

On a journey to find the cure for a Tatarigami's curse, a young warrior encounters a battle between forest gods and humans who consume the forest's resources.

Some films remind you what people are capable of at their best — not in a saccharine way, but in the way that feels genuinely earned. These are that kind of film.

A great fantasy film leaves you with that rare ache — a longing to return to a world that never existed.