Greatest Fantasy Movies – Worlds Beyond Reason
Twenty of cinema's greatest fantasy films, from Excalibur to Pan's Labyrinth. The 1980s golden era, Lord of the Rings, and one catastrophic trilogy — five decades of the genre.
Tag: Film Trilogy (Page 8)
Fiction WritingGreatest Westerns – The Lawless and the Just
Twenty-two of cinema's greatest Westerns from Stagecoach to The Magnificent Seven. The films that asked what a man owes a world that won't stand with him — and what it costs to answer.
1970sStar Wars: A New Hope (1977) Review
A New Hope is the film that created modern blockbuster cinema, and it did so by being something very specific: a myth engine. Lucas wasn't writing charact.
1980sThe Empire Strikes Back (1980) Review
Empire earns its 8 by doing what no Star Wars film before or since has managed: it takes the universe seriously. Lucas's original Star Wars is a myth engine, archetypes, simple morality, the pleasure of a world with clear rules.
AdaptationThe Lord of the Rings Review
Peter Jackson's three films, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, are the best fantasy adaptation ever made and among the best films ever made in the genre. The extended editions are the…
AdaptationRings of Power Review
The landscapes occasionally earn a 7 in isolation. In Tolkien's legendarium, Galadriel is one of the most powerful beings in Middle-earth.
CrimeThe Godfather Review
The Godfather is the best film ever made from a craft perspective. Not the most entertaining, not the most beloved, not the most influential, though it is all three.
Film TrilogyBack to the Future Trilogy Review
The Back to the Future trilogy earns its 9.5 by solving the hardest problem in serialized storytelling: making three films that each stand alone while building a cumulative argument none of them could make individually. Zemeckis and Gale understood something…
1960sPlanet of the Apes (1968) Review
Planet of the Apes has one of the great endings in science fiction cinema and earns its place in the conversation entirely on the basis of that ending. The Statue of Liberty rising from the sand is the genre's most…
Film ListScience Fiction Part 5 – The Solid Craft
The fifth tier of the science fiction ranking. Scott, Cuaron, Glazer, Boyle and Schaffner, plus the films whose best idea arrived and was left alone.
Film ListScience Fiction Part 3 – The Excellent
The third tier of the science fiction ranking. Bong, Miller, Blomkamp, Verhoeven and the Wachowskis, plus the films that were sold as the wrong thing.
Fiction WritingScience Fiction Part 2 – The Near Perfect
The second tier of the science fiction ranking. Gilliam, Verhoeven, Miyazaki, Cronenberg and Carpenter, plus the films that withhold on purpose.