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.
Go back far enough and you find films that had no idea they'd become classics. The 80s and 90s produced more of them than any other era.
The best fantasy isn't escapism. It's a different lens on the same world - clearer for being unfamiliar.
Rebellious young Axel Blackmar gets caught up into the family car business when his cousin, Paul, coaxes him to come to Arizona to attend the wedding of their Uncle Leo. As Axel makes the decision to try selling Cadillacs with his family, he meets an eccentric woman named Elaine and her equally quirky stepdaughter, Grace. Their lives become inextricably intertwined through romance, dreams - and death.
After receiving an exotic small animal as a Christmas gift, a young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet, which unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous creatures on a small town.
On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world, before the grotesque race of Skeksis find and use the crystal for evil.
After a wizard's spell goes awry, 12th-century Gallic knight Godefroy de Papincourt, Count of Montmirail finds himself transported to 1993, along with his dimwitted servant, Jacquouille la Fripouille. Startled and perplexed by modern technology, the duo run amok, destroying cars and causing chaos until they meet Beatrice de Montmirail, an aristocratic descendant of the nobleman, who may be able to help them get back to 1123.
Ray Kinsella is an Iowa farmer who hears a mysterious voice telling him to turn his cornfield into a baseball diamond. He does, but the voice's directions don't stop -- even after the spirits of deceased ballplayers turn up to play.
What makes a fantasy film last isn't the worldbuilding - it's whether you care about the people inside that world.
A naive business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam.
When a man claiming to be long-lost Uncle Fester reappears after 25 years lost, the family plans a celebration to wake the dead. But the kids barely have time to warm up the electric chair before Morticia begins to suspect Fester is fraud when he can't recall any of the details of Fester's life.
After 300 years of slumber, three sister witches are accidentally resurrected in Salem on Halloween night, and it is up to three kids and their newfound feline friend to put an end to the witches' reign of terror once and for all.
The evil Queen Bavmorda hunts the newborn princess Elora Danan, a child prophesied to bring about her downfall. When the royal infant is found by Willow, a timid farmer and aspiring sorcerer, he's entrusted with delivering her from evil.
This fantastical movie inspired by the music of Michael Jackson features imaginative interpretations of hit tracks from the iconic 1987 album "Bad".
The best mind-bending films don't cheat. They follow their own logic rigorously - which is exactly why the rug-pull, when it comes, is so disorienting.
Fantasy at its best doesn't make you wish you were somewhere else. It makes you see where you already are differently.