In the wake of Star Wars, both major and independent film studios attempted to capture some of that box office magic by producing all sorts of out-there movies that might interest those who loved the adventures of Luke Skywalker. Some of these titles were space operas like Flash Gordon — the source material that inspired the creation of Star Wars to begin with (via THR) and Battle Beyond the Stars, among others. While none of these got nearly the same attention film filmgoers and critics, it resulted in a fascinating decade for genre movies where no concept was off the table, and film buffs love revisiting this era to this day.
Update August 10, 2023: This article has been updated by Valerie Parker with even more underrated fantasy films from the 1980s.
Since Star Wars was essentially a fantasy film set in space, there were a lot of straightforward fantasy films made as well. Conan the Barbarian launched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career and has remained a much-loved film since its release. Labyrinth, The Neverending Story, and The Princess Bride weren’t incredibly successful upon release but managed to pick up steam on video and television until they reached the status of genuine, inarguable classics. Other movies like Dragonslayer and Willow are fondly remembered and maintain a loyal audience, while the movies we address below never quite managed to grip the zeitgeist in a major way.
These aren’t all obscure movies people have forgotten about, many of them are still mentioned today, but they don’t ignite the same passionate discussion as other movies mentioned. You may know them incredibly well and might very well love them, but that doesn’t change the fact that when it comes to public discourse, a lot of these are overlooked. Thus, we’re shining a light on them now in the hopes that they finally get their due.
12 Mio in the Land of Faraway
We start off with a more obscure film: Mio in the Land of Faraway. Based on the novel Mio, min Mio (or Mio, my Son in English) by Astrid Lindgren, this 1987 Russian, Swedish, and Norwegian film couldn’t be simpler: an orphan boy living with his domineering aunt in Sweden discovers that he is a prince from the magical kingdom of Faraway. Upon arriving in his fantastical homeland, he discovers that many of the people there live in fear of a Knight named Kato played by the late Christopher Lee. The plot itself doesn’t hold many surprises, but many of the details are captivating.
Mio travels to Faraway by clinging to the beard of a massive, disembodied head. He learns the story of Kato by listening to a whispering well, and one of the first people he meets on his journey to end Kato’s menace is a woman who weaves the tapestry of dreams. When compared to other kid-friendly fantasy adventure films of the time, it doesn’t measure up but taken on its own terms, it is a perfectly watchable, even transportive movie that almost has a meditative and soothing effect on the viewer. Besides, it features a very early performance from a young Christian Bale, and the title song performed by Gemini (and composed by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus of Abba) is great.
11 Red Sonja
Red Sonja is a sword and sorcery film based loosely on the comic book character introduced in 1973, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary at San Diego Comic-Con. The film is treated as a spinoff of the Conan the Barbarian series, which stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, but confusingly Schwarzenegger plays a different character in this film. After originally being rumored as far back as 2008, a reboot of Red Sonja was announced in 2022, starring Matilda Lutz as the new Red Sonja.
In this uniquely female lead film from 1985, Brigitte Nielsen plays the titular character. After she's brutally attacked by the forces of Queen Gedren, a powerful sorceress who kills her parents and brother when Sonja rejects the queen's sexual advances, Sonja asks for help in her quest for revenge. Answering her call, an unnamed female spirit gives her enhanced sword fighting skills on one condition, that she should never lie with a man unless he beat her in single combat. When Gedren attacks a sacred temple where Varna, Sonja's sister, is a priestess, and steals a dangerous object known as The Talisman. Fearing Gedren's power with the use of such a powerful magical object, Sonja goes on a quest to retrieve it and overcome Gedren, with the help of the Lord of Hyrkania, Kalidor (Schwarzenegger), at her side.
10 Krull
The biggest genre box office bomb of the 80s, Krull is sort of a fantasy/sci-fi hybrid that the audience just wasn't ready for. Perhaps it's still not ready for it, to be honest. A rip-off of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and countless other stories that came before it, Krull is a charmingly simple tale of good versus evil without any real stakes. Released the same year as Return of the Jedi, Krull is somehow a more realistic film that is both darker and scarier.
The first major appearance from both Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, neither is the star of the film. Instead, they follow Prince Colwyn (Ken Marshall) on a quest to save a damsel in distress from The Beast, who has invaded Krull. The two were married to bring two kingdoms together, but at their wedding, followers of The Beast attacked and killed nearly the entire wedding party. They kidnapped Princess Lyssa (Lysette Anthony), Colwyn's new bride, leading to the quest at the heart of the film.
9 Masters of the Universe
The big screen adaptation of the iconic ‘80s animated series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe failed to live up to the expectations of the studio or the toy company, hoping a hit film would reignite interest in the brand. This is partly due to the fact that Masters of the Universe was made about five years too late, and the Earth-centric story pales in comparison to He-Man’s exploits in Eternia. That being said, if you’re able to divorce the film from its source material and simply engage with it as a wild piece of ‘80s media, then your opinion of the film may change.
Although the film looks cheap, there are some designs that still hold up. When Skeletor isn’t speaking, he looks suitably menacing, at least Dolph Lundgren looks like He-Man, and the cosmic key is a cool prop. On top of that, the majority of the cast is quite good. Meg Foster is great as Evil-Lyn, Courteney Cox and Robert Duncan McNeill are believable in their roles as young lovers swept up in a bonkers adventure, and Billy Barty steals the show as Gwildor (who should’ve just been called Orko). Not to mention, Bill Conti’s score is suitably epic and fun. No, it’s not a great movie, but it is far more entertaining than audiences give it credit for.
8 Hansel and Gretel
One of the scariest fairy tales of all time is Hansel and Gretel. When their parents can no longer afford to feed them, two children are abandoned in the woods to fend for themselves. They stumble upon a gingerbread house owned by a kind old lady who only wants to feed them until their starving bellies are full. Too bad she’s actually an evil crone intent on fattening them up, so she can eat them. It’s a twisted tale and this 1987 production from Cannon films (part of their Cannon Movie Tales series) really leans into it.
At first, things are a little too discount Disney with songs that don’t hit the way the filmmakers likely intended, but once our title characters meet the witch, the entire film takes a huge leap in entertainment value. While both David Warner and Emily Richard are great in their roles as parents, this film belongs to the incredible Cloris Leachman as Griselda the Witch. She is so welcoming and sweet at first that you believe kids would willingly enter her house, but when she makes her evil turn, it is one of the most frightening performances in any film intended for children. She delivers the line, “I know you’re there…I can smell you!” so perfectly it should be taught in acting classes on how to be campy and terrifying simultaneously.
7 The Beastmaster
Dar (Marc Singer) is the son of a King, and was quite literally ripped from his mother's womb on the orders of Maax, a priest played by the wonderful Rip Torn. Raised by a foster family who rescued him from a cult ritual, Dar learns that he has the power to communicate with animals. His idyllic life is shattered when Maax hunts him down and has his adopted home destroyed, and his father is killed in the mele. Dar survives, and vows revenge against Maax, befriending several animals along the way.
The Beastmasterwas based on a 1949 novel called The Beast Master, and took the story of a Navajo hero in a sci-fi setting, and put a white man in the lead in a more fantasy genre setting. Beyond this rather offensive recasting that was typical of the period, the story generally only takes the basic plot of the novel wherein the hero of the journey in on a quest to take revenge for the death of his father and is able to speak to animals and his companions include an eagle, a big cat, and a ferret. One area where the film does excel is in its depiction of women. Far from following the damsel in distress trope so popular in this kind of feature, especially in the 1980s, the heroine in this film (Kiri played by Tanya Roberts) joins in on the combat, and even in the scenes showing the attack on Dar's village, the women are shown fighting alongside the men to protect their home.
6 Flesh and Blood
The first American production released by Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop, Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers), Flesh and Blood was the director's answer to the 80s trend of showing the period known as the Middle Ages in Europe in an overly romantic light. What he delivered instead was an overly dark film that depicted a period where poverty, disease, and brutality were the way most lived, and in doing so, Verhoeven may have delivered a movie that was just too brutal for its audience.
Rutger Hauer is Martin, the leader of a gang of thieves who find themselves unpaid by an ungrateful noble who used them to retake a city in 1501 Italy. In their revenge, the gang attacks the nobleman's son, Steven (Tom Burlinson), and inadvertently kidnap his fiance, Agnes (Jennifer Jason Leigh), who had been hiding in their carriage during the attack. When the beautiful young noblewoman is discovered, she's brutally attacked by Martin, but she manages to manipulate him into believing she's enjoying the encounter, which saves her from being attacked by his compatriots when he forms an attachment to her. This causes a rift between the members of the gang, which might help when Steven eventually storms the castle in an attempt to rescue her.
5 Time Bandits
Why Terry Gilliam’s 1981 adventure time about traveling through time to steal from historical figures isn’t remembered as fondly as The Goonies is a legitimate mystery. Both films are about finding treasure and encountering danger, but the scope of Time Bandits is so much larger and the jokes are much funnier. Maybe it’s just a little too strange for mainstream audiences, but if you’re into Monty Python (Gilliam is a Python alum, he co-wrote it with Michael Palin, and it has a hilarious cameo by John Cleese as a posh Robin Hood) and like epic storytelling, there’s no reason you shouldn’t love this film.
It tells the story of a boy who loves history and heroism, while his parents only care about materialism. He is carried away by a band of thieves who have stolen a map from God and used it to rob people throughout history. At the same time, the source of all evil is tracking their every move, luring them to his fortress for a final showdown. They encounter monsters and sink with the Titanic, and Sean Connery plays Agamemnon in a piece of casting that both somehow works and makes no sense at the same time. It is genuinely hysterical, never boring, and surprisingly deep. Fans of the film love it, but it still isn’t appreciated by the world as a whole.
4 Legend
Depending on your age and where you grew up, chances are you’re familiar with the dark, atmospheric, and horrifying North American cut of Ridley Scott’s epic fairytale about darkness overtaking light by stealing a unicorn’s horn and corrupting an innocent girl, Legend. By now, however, it is fairly well known that another superior cut of the film also exists and is easily available for anyone hoping for a more traditional and rewarding viewing experience. While it’s easy to say the main difference between both versions of the film is the score, the differences run much deeper than that.
With a glorious synth score by Tangerine Dream (and a phenomenal final song called "Loved by the Sun"), the North American release is lean, mean, and angry. The violence hits harder, the evil of Darkness seeps through every scene, and the overall dreariness is suffocating. The UK release, scored by Jerry Goldsmith, is almost like an entirely different film. It’s lighter, sweeter, more romantic, and enchanting, everything you want a grandiose fantasy film to be. That being said, neither version of the film gets the widespread acclaim they deserve. Both are masterpieces in their own way.
3 Return to Oz
Return to Oz is a dark, sad, and riveting film about what it means to lose the spark of magic in our lives. The first time we see Dorothy, she looks utterly depressed. She has just been on the most amazing adventure of her life, traveling to a magical land where she defeated evil and spread joy, only to return to the cold, harsh reality of Kansas at the turn of the century. No one believes her stories about the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman, and the Cowardly Lion, and she is placed in an institution where she’s set to undergo shock treatment!
As a sequel to one of the most colorful and happiest films in the history of cinema, Return to Oz appears to be a huge misstep. Even when Dorothy manages to find her way back to Oz, it’s a terrifying place devoid of joy, ruled by the Gnome King. If you grew up with this movie, you had nightmares, there’s no question. However, what so many people miss is how the film focuses on the trauma of getting older, losing our naïveté, and the work it takes to overcome the pressures of the world and find joy again. It needs to be melancholic and scary so that by the end we feel exuberant and safe again. This is truly an underappreciated masterpiece.
2 Ladyhawke
Ladyhawke is an epic love story of a pair of star-crossed lovers cursed to an eternity apart by a jealous sorcerer. Matthew Broderick plays the loveable scamp Phillipe Gaston, who, upon his escape from prison, stumbles upon Captain Etienne Navarre (Rutger Hauer) and his hawk companion. Gaston soon discovers that not all is as it seems, for the hawk is no mere hawk but Navarre's lover, Lady Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer). When she spurned the advances of the Bishop of Aquila (John Bishop), Isabeau and Navarre are cursed to forever be in each other's company but never truly together. During the day, Isabeau takes the form of a hawk, while at night, Navarre will assume the form of a wolf. With Gaston's help, the pair must take down the Bishop in hopes of breaking the curse.
This understated entry to the fantasy genre gives glimpses of mysticism and magic amidst a mythical Medieval European backdrop. Even with the pedigree of director and producer Richard Donner (Superman, The Goonies, Lethal Weapon) and Hollywood heavyweights such as Pfeiffer and Broderick involved, Ladyhawke was a movie that never truly found an audience and is often overlooked in the annals of fantasy films. The film is relatively low-key, without the addition of large special effects set pieces, which makes it a rare gem in the genre.
1 The Last Unicorn
Christopher Lee bookends our list with two great roles in two fantasy films that deserve more attention. In The Last Unicorn, he voices the perfectly named King Haggard, the old, curmudgeonly king who controls the Red Bull. From Rankin/Bass, the same studio that produced several holiday specials as well as animated adaptations of The Hobbit and Return of the King, there is a very good chance you’ve seen this movie before. It is by no means a forgotten masterpiece or an obscure gem. Instead, The Last Unicorn is simply an outsider. A film that should be mentioned alongside the classic animated films of the Disney Renaissance (like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast) but isn’t for some reason.
Based on the incredible book by Peter S. Beagle, it tells the story of the world’s last unicorn setting forth to see if she truly is the last of her kind. Since this is a film for children, some of the more satirical elements of the book are underused, but the enchanting prose is captured beautifully in this gorgeous animation that mimics classic European art. It’s funny, romantic, melancholic, and scary in all the right ways. The folksy soundtrack from the band America hasn’t aged very well, but if you can accept the spirit in which the songs were written, even they should grow on you and become another part of this underrated film’s charm.