Image via HBO
Published Oct 4, 2026, 6:05 PM EDT
Remus is a writer, editor, journalist, and author with an eye for detail and an extremely active imagination. He is an enthusiast of everything to do with the graphic medium, whether it's Western comics and their adaptations or manga and anime. Remus is also the author of the sci-fantasy novel Once Upon a Time in Hyperspace and several works of short fiction in the mystery, comedy, and horror genres.
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Fantasy television has undergone a massive transformation since the early days of American TV history, particularly within the last 50 years. From high fantasy epics to lighter, comedic fare, the genre has found several new ways to reinvent itself over that time, growing by leaps and bounds as it transitioned from quirky, low-budget, lighthearted family comedies and campy action adventures to multi-million-dollar, cinematic sagas with sprawling, adult-oriented narratives and deep lore, some of which have even become major pop culture touchstones.
In the last five decades, fantasy television has produced some of the most memorable shows of all time, gradually moving from fun family adventures to mythical heroes, darker fantasies, political intrigue, and complex narratives. Read on to discover our ranked selection of some of the greatest fantasy shows of the last 50 years, including both relatively recent gems and beloved classics.
8 ‘The Addams Family' (1992–1993)
Based on Charles Addams’ iconic comic strip characters of the same name, the '90s Addams Family animated series was produced by Hanna-Barbera, the second animated show featuring the characters after the 1973 series. The horror-comedy follows the kooky and creepy titular family who live in their spooky ancestral home in the otherwise ordinary suburb of Happydale Heights, dealing with an array of issues in their daily lives and trying to resolve them in their own peculiar ways. Nancy Linari, John Astin, Dick Beals, Carol Channing, Jim Cummings, and Debi Derryberry voice the main characters.
As with the '70s show, the '90s cartoon toned down some of the more mature elements of the franchise, creating a more child-friendly narrative. The series cleverly blends macabre comedy with lighthearted horror and witty gags to create a fun experience the whole family can enjoy. While it is not always counted among the best adaptations of The Addams Family characters and their stories, the ABC classic is still celebrated as a Saturday morning television gem that’s deeply nostalgic for the generation that grew up with it.
7 ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ (1997–2003)
Image via The WBA supernatural fantasy series that catapulted Sarah Michelle Gellar to global stardom, Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer follows Gellar as the titular central protagonist, the latest in a long line of vampire slayers. As she learns to embrace her destiny, Buffy navigates high school, teenage drama, and everyday life while battling evil forces and dark prophecies. Alongside Gellar, the show also stars Nicholas Brendon, Alyson Hannigan, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Stewart Head, and more in iconic roles.
Not only did Buffy the Vampire Slayer become a pop culture icon of the 2000s, but it also turned into a fantasy television landmark that redefined the genre’s direction. The show is still considered a turn-of-the-century genre essential that found the right balance of '90s grunge, 2000s futurism, fantasy horror, and teen fantasy. A pioneer of teenage supernatural fantasies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a nostalgic genre gem that still (mostly) holds up today.
6 ‘Supernatural’ (2005–2020)
Image via The CWCreated by Eric Kripke, Supernatural is an essential supernatural fantasy series of the 2000s that made its heroes — the Winchester brothers, Sam and Dean — into pop culture icons. Starring Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, the dark supernatural fantasy procedural follows the brothers as they travel across the country, hunting down supernatural creatures and fighting evil forces to save the world. Misha Collins, Mark A. Sheppard, Katie Cassidy, Lauren Cohan, Mark Pellegrino, and more appear in other notable roles.
With a whopping 15 seasons to its name, Supernatural ended its run as the longest-running live-action fantasy series in American television history and continues to be a genre favorite. Spanning the first one and a half decades of the 21st century, the series also helped shape the pop culture of its time and turned into a major mainstream hit. Thrilling, exciting, often humorous, and with a deep emotional core, Supernatural is truly one of the best modern fantasy series, revisiting folklore and mythology in unique ways.
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
5 ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011–2019)
Image via HBODavid Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, Game of Thrones is a true television legend of the 21st century that completely changed the way people perceive fantasy with its multi-generational saga of politics, power, and morality. Set primarily in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, where each nation eyes the coveted Iron Throne, the series follows multiple characters in a massive continent-spanning conflict, while a mysterious supernatural threat rises, threatening their kingdoms and all civilization. The ensemble cast includes Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as essential characters.
During its eight-season run, Game of Thrones remained a massive global phenomenon that had a deep cultural impact, giving rise to a new kind of fantasy TV. Larger than life in every aspect, the series brought life to Martin’s epic literature with the most unimaginable visuals, costumes, and settings. Game of Thrones is a monumental landmark of fantasy television and an influential genre hit that has since become a universe of its own, spawning multiple spin-offs and a podcast.
4 ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ (1983)
Image via Filmation AssociatesAn '80s classic sword-and-planet animated fantasy series based on the Mattel toys introduced in 1982, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe follows the titular hero, Prince Adam of the magical kingdom of Eternia, who wields the Sword of Power and becomes the most powerful man in the universe. With the help of his allies, Battle Cat, the Sorceress, Teela, Man-At-Arms, and Orko, He-Man uses his powers to defend Eternia from the evil Skeletor. Developed by Lou Scheimer, the show features the voices of John Erwin, Alan Oppenheimer, Linda Gary, Erik Gunden, and Erika Scheimer.
One of the most popular animated shows of the '80s, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe went on to become a globally popular action fantasy icon, spawning a feature film, comic book and comic strip adaptations, several remakes and reboots, and two live-action films. A high-concept sword and sorcery story with unique sci-fi elements and unforgettable characters, the animated series left a massive cultural footprint and completely changed the cartoon landscape. The success of a toy-based show became a blueprint for 1980s syndication and toy marketing, which largely continues to this day.
3 ‘Castlevania’ (2017–2021)
Image via NetflixAn adult-animated series adaptation of the Japanese video game series, Castlevania is a dark fantasy story of a devastating conflict between humanity and monsters, precipitated by the vampire lord Vlad Dracula Tepes. The series centers on Trevor Belmont, the last survivor of a disgraced clan of monster hunters, who sets out to defend his nation from Dracula with the help of powerful magician Sypha Belnades and Dracula’s half-vampire, half-human son, Alucard. Created by Warren Ellis, Castlevania’s ensemble voice cast includes Richard Armitage, James Callis, Alejandra Reynoso, Graham McTavish, Emily Swallow, Theo James, and more.
A visual and conceptual masterpiece, Castlevania delights with its high-octane, anime-inspired action and dark themes, opening a new horizon for the genre. The show has garnered acclaim for breaking the infamous trend of subpar video game adaptations and establishing itself as a masterclass in animated storytelling. The mature philosophical themes, flawless character arcs, and fluid animation style collectively make Castlevania one of the greatest fantasy shows of the last five decades.
2 ‘Land of the Lost’ (1974–1976)
Image via NBCCreated by David Gerrold and produced by Sid and Marty Krofft, Land of the Lost is a classic children’s adventure series that follows Rick Marshall, a widowed father, and his teenage children, Will and Holly, who get trapped in a prehistoric world. The series focuses on the daily struggles of the family as they navigate the mysterious, hostile world that does not follow any of the rules of human civilization. Spencer Milligan, Wesley Eure, and Kathy Coleman play the Marshalls, with Phillip Paley and Walker Edmiston as other main characters.
Made with a combination of live-action and stop-motion animation, Land of the Lost was a pioneering fantasy adventure and a Saturday morning staple on NBC during its three-season run from 1974 to 1976. The show was a major shift from the story-of-the-week format of its time and brought a serialized mythology and serious drama to children’s television. With its inventive and ambitious world-building and a groundbreaking production (for its time) on a budget, Land of the Lost is an icon of '70s fantasy television that still holds up today.
1 ‘The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance’ (2019)
A prequel series to Jim Henson’s 1982 film The Dark Crystal, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance expands on the fantastical world of the original film with new characters and story arcs. Developed by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, the series centers on Rian, Brea, and Deet, three young individuals of the elvish humanoid species called Gelflings, who spark a rebellion against the evil Skeksis after they discover a dark secret. The main characters are voiced by Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nathalie Emmanuel, Helena Bonham Carter, and Shazad Latif.
Made entirely with practical effects and The Jim Henson Company’s signature puppetry, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is a fantasy masterpiece and ranks among the finest shows of this century. The series brings a more mature tone to the original idea with deeper world-building and complex themes. Age of Resistance has been critically acclaimed for its incredible imagination and remarkable visuals, even though it remains a relatively underrated gem.
Release Date 2019 - 2019-00-00
Network Netflix
