Image via A24
Published Oct 8, 2026, 8:17 AM EDT
Born with Autism (formerly classified as Asperger syndrome), Tyler B. Searle has been obsessed with storytelling since he was old enough to speak. He gravitated towards fairy tales, mythology, the fantasy genre, and animated movies and shows aimed at family audiences. When not writing, Tyler enjoys watching more cartoons and reading fantasy books in his home in Ontario, Canada.
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Fantasy is the oldest and most creative genre of storytelling. It allows authors to take the mundane world around us and transform it into something magical, with daring heroes who represent the best of human virtues, monsters who represent the worst of our fears, and mystical phenomena that can do everything from summoning fire from nothing to re-writing reality itself. It is limited only by the imagination of the storyteller, and can be represented in countless ways, from epic high fantasy quests to urban fantasy where magic hides in plain sight.
When it comes to movies, fantasy has been through several periods of ups and downs. The 2020s have been somewhere in the middle, with a few stand-out movies that grab audiences with their impressive worlds and thought-provoking themes.
6 'The Green Knight' (2021)
Image via A24On Christmas Day, a mysterious Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) barges into the court of King Arthur (Sean Harris) with a challenge: any knight who lands a blow on him will receive his axe, but must seek out the knight in one year's time to receive the same blow. Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) takes up the offer and decapitates the knight, who picks up his head and rides off. One year later, Gawain sets off to uphold his end of the bargain, but the road is long and full of perils, both mundane and magical in nature.
The greatest strength of The Green Knight is how it makes its world feel truly magical. Nobody slings powerful spells or wields otherworldly weapons, but every step in Gawain's journey feels like one has entered into an enchanted dream, where unseen forces push and pull against each other. Thus, when the magical creatures like the Green Knight show up, it feels like the hidden forces have finally come to the foreground. Patel's performance as Gawain is also stellar: he truly feels like a young man full of human flaws and completely out of his depth, yet he keeps pushing forward because he has a duty to uphold.
5 'Wolfwalkers' (2020)
Image via Apple TV+Robyn Goodfellow (Honor Kneafsey) is the adventurous daughter of Bill (Sean Bean), a wolf hunter who has been employed by the Lord Protector (Simon McBurney) of Kilkenny to drive out the wolves from the local forest. While trying to help Bill, she gets caught in one of Bill's traps, and meets Mehb (Eva Whittaker), a feral girl who identifies herself as a Wolfwalker; someone whose spirit can leave their human body and become a wolf. Unfortunately, Mehb accidentally bit Robyn while freeing her from the trap, transforming her into a Wolfwalker as well.
Wolfwalker is the final of Cartoon Saloon's Irish Mythology Trilogy, and though not as strong as the first two entries, it's still a beautiful movie. The animation is stellar: it continues the trilogy's aesthetic of medieval illustrations come to life, but takes it even further through first-person perspectives that let audiences see the world through a wolf's POV, both through sight and smell. It also makes a great distinction between the lush, deep colors of the forest, and the stale uniformity of the city. The story and characters are also solid, with themes of individual expressions, the natural world's attempt to survive against human expansion, and even the dangers of pride through the Lord Protector's stubborn adherence to what he believes is a just cause.
4 'KPop Demon Hunters' (2025)
Image via NetflixRumi (Arden Cho), Mira (May Hong), and Zoey (Ji-young Yoo), are members of the famous k-pop band Huntrix, but, unknown to their millions of fans, they use the power of their support to battle evil demons and create a magic barrier to keep the demons from invading the world. Realizing this, demon king Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun) creates a boy band called the Saja Boys to steal their fans. Their leader, a former human named Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop), further complicates things when he discovers that Runi is a half-demon, and the two begin taking great risks as they open up to the other.
KPop Demon Hunters became one of Netflix's biggest hits, attracting fans from all demographics. This is thanks to how simple but deep the film is. It doesn't break new ground in any way, but every element, from its catchy songs to its gorgeous animation and sense of humor, is good enough that, together, they make a world that is an absolute blast to watch. It also helps that the story is really good, focused on themes of overcoming self-doubt and finding acceptance in oneself, even with all of our imperfections.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood
Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
FIND YOUR WORLD →
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.
REVEAL MY WORLD →
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
- You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
- The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
- You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
- You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
- The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
- You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
- You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
- The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
- You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
- You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
- The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
- Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
3 'Puss in Boots: The Last Wish' (2022)
Image via DreamWorks AnimationFamous swashbuckling outlaw Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) learns that he is down to the last of his nine lives, and after a disastrous fight with a mysterious white wolf (Wagner Moura), he resigns himself to an early retirement. His hope is rekindled upon overhearing Goldilocks (Kailey Crawford and Florence Pugh) and the Three Bears (Ray Winstone, Olivia Colman, and Samson Kayo) talk about how Big Jack Horner (John Mulaney) has acquired a map that leads to a fallen wishing star. Teaming up with his old flame, Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault), and an unnamed but very friendly dog (Harvey Guillén), Puss races to claim the wishing star and regain his lost lives, but the shadow of the wolf follows him every step of the way.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is the sequel to 2011's Puss in Boots—itself a spin-off to the Shrek franchise—and it blew away audiences and critics with the insane level of talent and passion put into it. The animation alone is phenomenal, drawing heavily from Sony's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to create a beautiful style that looks like animated watercolor drawings. This fits with the film's fairy tale aesthetic, as it's like a storybook has come to life. Then there is the writing: when it's not making audiences laugh with its clever jokes that continue the franchise's habit of poking fun at classic fairy tale clichés, the film hits hard with a mature story about coming to terms with one's mortality and finding that, oftentimes, the things we want most have been in front of us the entire time.
2 'Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio' (2022)
Image via NetflixConsumed by grief over the death of his son, a woodcarver named Geppetto (David Bradley) chops down the tree growing over his grave and carves it into a puppet in his likeness. A passing Wood Sprite (Tilda Swinton) takes pity on him and brings the puppet, named Pinocchio (Gregory Mann), to life, and tasks a cricket named Sebastian (Ewan McGregor) with being his conscience in exchange for a wish. Pinocchio's lack of social awareness and eager personality makes him excited to learn about the world, but it also leaves him vulnerable to the manipulations of numerous groups who want to exploit him for one reason or another.
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio was a passion project of the director's for years, and you can feel Del Toro's love and creative spark in every scene. He made a lot of changes from the original Carlo Collodi story, such as setting it in the 1930s, and replacing iconic moments like Pleasure Island with trips to the Underworld where Pinocchio talks to Death (Tilda Swinton). He uses these changes to explore interesting themes like grief, mortality, and the idea that Pinocchio can become a real body without literally transforming into one, which gives the movie a very strong identity. The stop-motion animation is also phenomenal, with plenty of intricate details and impressive movements during action sequences.
1 'The Boy and the Heron' (2023)
Image via Studio GhibliAfter losing his mother to allied firebombing during World War II, Mahito (Soma Santoki/Luca Padovan) finds himself moving to the countryside to live with his aunt and new stepmother, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura/Gemma Chan). Mahito keeps himself distant from Natsuko and her household staff, but finds himself being stalked by a peculiar Grey Heron (Masaki Suda/Robert Pattinson). The heron eventually leads Mahito inside a ruined tower built by his great granduncle (Shōhei Hino/Mark Hamill), which contains within it a portal to another world.
The Boy and the Heron is the most recent film to come from legendary Japanese director Hayaou Miyazaki, and became his second movie to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It's perhaps the most dream-like of all his movies, especially once the characters get to the other world. Every character and location is metaphorical for aspects of the difficulties Mahito is experiencing, leading to strong themes regarding grief, loss, and the next generation trying to build a better world than the one from before. Finally, the English voice cast for the film is great, made up of veteran actors from previous dubs of Studio Ghibli films, and newcommers like Pattinson, who sounds completely unrecognizable as the heron.
