10 Fantasy Movie Flops That Are Actually Misunderstood Masterpieces

Image via Paramount Pictures Published Nov 7, 2026, 12:29 AM EST 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. Sign in to your Collider account It can be soul-crushing when creatives put their all into a movie, and it bombs at the box office. Sometimes, this is deserved if the movie was made to chase a trend, but it can also be due to studio interference that warps the plot, poor marketing choices, competition from other movies, or simply bad luck. Most often, these movies fade from the public consciousness, but a lucky few find a second life, either through home release or word of mouth, years after their initial release, and come to be seen as cult classics. The fantasy genre is an unfortunate victim of this trend, with many great movies losing their studios millions of dollars. Thanks to streaming, these films are now available for a whole new generation of viewers who can indulge in their creativity and captivating performances. 'Return to Oz' (1985) Image via Walt Disney Pictures Dorothy Gale (Fairuza Balk) is sent to a sanatorium due to talking about her time in the land of Oz, and is nearly subjected to electroshock therapy before being rescued by a mysterious girl (Emma Ridley). She helps Dorothy get downriver in a chicken coop, and Dorothy ends up returning to Oz with a chicken named Billina (Denise Bryer), who can now speak. Unfortunately, Dorothy discovers that Oz has been conquered by the Nome King (Nicol Williamson), who has stripped the Emerald City of its emeralds and turned its people to stone. Return to Oz billed itself as an unofficial sequel to The Wizard of Oz, but it has gained a reputation as a film that traumatized a generation of kids with its scary imagery, especially the horrific wheel-limbed creatures called Wheelers. Beyond the scary moments, there are tons of creative moments on display through impressive puppetry and stellar claymation by the legendary Will Vinton. While the characters aren't as iconic as those in the original films, they still have a strong camaraderie, particularly between Dorothy and Jack Pumpkinhead (Brian Henson). 'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' (2023) Image via Paramount Pictures Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and his friend Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) escape from prison to reunite with Edgin's daughter, Kira (Sophia Nell-Huntley and Chloe Coleman), currently staying with their associate, Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant). Unfortunately, they learn that Forge and the Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head) were behind their imprisonment, and that Forge had told Kira that Edgin was motivated by greed rather than magical means to bring his wife back to life. To stop them, Edgin and Holga recruit their half-elf sorcerer friend, Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and the shapeshifting tiefling druid, Doric (Sophia Lillis). Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves showed that good movies can be made from the Dungeons & Dragon brand after the rather abysmal trilogy from the 2000s. Its humor is very tongue-in-cheek and full of jokes that feel like they're coming from a group of friends playing their own game, especially when the party tries to gain information from ancient corpses. It's also carried by a great cast who fully immerse themselves in the roles they're given, especially Regé-Jean Page, who plays the most stereotypical Lawful Good Paladin. 'The Adventures of Baron Munchausen' (1988) Image via Columbia Pictures While the Ottoman Empire attacks an unnamed city during the Age of Reason, a circus troupe performs a play based on the adventures of Baron Munchausen. They are interrupted by the real Baron (John Neville), enraged at the inaccuracies, and he reveals that the reason for the war is because of a bet he made with the Sultan (Peter Jeffrey). To save them, the Baron sets off to find his old companions, accompanied by a young girl named Sally Salt (Sarah Polley), and stalked by the Angel of Death. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is the last in Terry Gilliam's Trilogy of Imagination, and while not on the same level as Time Bandits and Brazil, the film is still a marvel to behold. The production design is impressive, with elaborate sets to bring the fantastical world to life through a war-torn city, the forge of a god, and a wacky kingdom on the moon ruled by Robin Williams. Thematically, the film centers around time: how it wears us down and robs us of our strength in old age, how the world will advance and forget about us, and how one can use the time they have to find meaning and fulfillment. 'Kubo and the Two Strings' (2016) Image via Laika Kubo (Art Parkinson) is a young boy with a magic shamisen, which he uses to animate origami and tell stories to earn money for himself and his mother, Sariatu (Charlize Theron), the daughter of the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes), who took Kubo's eye when he was a child. When Kubo stays out too late to attend a festival, his aunts track him down and try to take his remaining eye, but his mother uses her magic to teleport him away. Kubo then sets off to find his deceased father's armor with two companions—Monkey (Charlize Theron), Kubo's snow monkey charm come to life, and Beetle (Matthew McConaughey), a cursed warrior who knew his father. Kubo and the Two Strings is an ambitious project from the beloved stop-motion company Laika, boasting stylistic models that lend themselves to intense action scenes and heartfelt dialogues. Storytelling is a major component of the film, shown both as a means of inspiration and change, and a way to keep the memories of those who have passed on alive. Grief also plays an important role, particularly in the climax, where Kubo learns the importance of overcoming grief and using it to build a brighter future. 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-earthYou 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 LineYou 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 ContinentYou 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-BloodYou 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 'Labyrinth' (1986) Image via Tri-Star Pictures Frustrated at having to babysit her half-brother, Toby (Toby Froud), Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly), inspired by a fairy tale she was reading, wishes that goblins would come and steal him away. Amazingly, her wish comes true, and the goblin king Jareth (David Bowie) takes Toby to his castle, where he will be turned into a goblin. To rescue him, Sarah must navigate a labyrinth to reach Jareth's castle in the center, but each turn reveals new surprises, some friendly and some hostile. Labyrinth is perhaps the weirdest project born from the mind of Jim Henson, and it is likely why it bombed so hard. However, this weirdness adds to the film's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-type feel, as one strange experience leads into another, pushing Sarah to undergo a coming-of-age journey. Bowie's performance as Jareth is also captivating thanks to his natural charisma, commanding presence, and the tricks he performs with his orb. 'Dragonslayer' (1981) Image via Paramount Pictures Galen Bradwarden (Peter MacNicol) is a young man apprenticing to the last great sorcerer, Ulrich of Cragganmore (Sir Ralph Richardson). One day, an expedition from Urlan comes to ask Ulrich to kill the dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative, that has been plaguing their kingdom and devouring young maidens given in tribute. Sadly, Ulrich is killed when trying to demonstrate his powers, but Galen inherits his magic amulet and vows to kill the dragon himself. Dragonslayer is one of the best dark fantasy movies thanks to its groundbreaking effects and compelling story. The characters are all shades of gray, doing what they believe is necessary to save the kingdom, even if it costs them their lives and causes them to cross blades with those who want the same thing through different means. As for the effects, a combination of massive puppets, flamethrowers, and impressive stop-motion results in perhaps the greatest dragon in cinema. 'The Last Unicorn' (1982) Image via Jensen Farley Pictures After overhearing two hunters talking about the absence of unicorns in the world, one unicorn (Mia Farrow) decides to travel the world and find evidence of the rest of her kind. She learns that they were driven towards the seas years ago by a monstrous Red Bull controlled by King Haggard (Sir Christopher Lee). Along the way, she finds allies in a bumbling magician named Schmendrick (Alan Arkin) and a bandit's wife named Molly Grue (Tammy Grimes). The Last Unicorn was written by author Peter S. Beagle, who wrote the original book, and thus retains most of the book's clever dialogue and poignant themes regarding loss, regret, and memories. The characters are surprisingly complex for a children's film, especially Haggard, whose motivations are Shakespearean in their tragedy. All of which is brought to life through gorgeous animation by Studio Ghibli's predecessor, Topcraft, which animates the characters and landscapes in a style that looks like medieval tapestries come to life. 'A Monster Calls' (2016) Image via Focus Features Conor O'Mally (Lewis MacDougall) is a young boy living with his terminally ill mother (Felicity Jones), and frustrated by bullies at school and frequent visits from his strict grandmother (Sigourney Weaver), with whom he will live when his mother dies. One night, Conor watches as a monster (Liam Neeson) emerges from a yew tree and seeks him out. The monster says that it has come to tell Conor three stories, after which Conor will tell the monster a fourth containing his truth. A Monster Calls is a surprisingly perfect fantasy film that uses its fantastical elements sparingly to maximize its impact. If you take away the monster and the stories he tells, it's a movie about a young boy forced to confront and process the grief of losing a loved one, while also showing that grief never exists in a vacuum. The stories themselves are also very creative, with messages about seeing things from different perspectives and the importance of hope, all told through stylistic animation that looks like a storybook come to life. 'Stardust' (2007) Image via Paramount Pictures When Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) sees a falling star, he promises to retrieve it for his crush, Victoria (Sienna Miller), in exchange for her hand in marriage. Leaving the safety of his village for the magical land of Stormhold, he discovers that the star has taken the form of a young woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes), who was knocked out of the sky when the dying king of Stormhold (Peter O'Toole) launched his ruby for his surviving sons to find and claim kingship. Tristan's attempts to bring Yvaine back to Victoria are complicated not just by the princes' competition, but also by three witches who hope to cut out Yvaine's heart to restore their youth. Based on the book by Neil Gaiman, Stardust is a lighthearted fantasy that knows what it is and invites audiences to come along and have a good time. It does this by blending familial fairy tale tropes like lost heirs, evil witches, and the search for true love, with a charming romance story carried by characters with beautiful chemistry. The film is also chock-full of great performances, such as Mark Strong as the sinister Prince Septimus, who'll stop at nothing to achieve his throne, Michelle Pfeiffer as the cruel witch Lamia pursuing Yvaine, and Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare, a vicious sky pirate with a very different personality behind closed doors. 'The Princess Bride' (1987) Image via 20th Century Studios A grandfather (Peter Falk) visits his sick grandson (Fred Savage) to read him the story of Buttercup (Robin Wright), a young woman in love with her farmhand, Wesley (Cary Elwes). When Westley is lost at sea while seeking his fortune, Buttercup falls into a deep depression and is selected by Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) to be his bride. Before the wedding, Buttercup is kidnapped by a trio of bandits who hope to use her to start a war with Humperdinck's neighbors, but they are pursued by a mysterious man in black. The Princess Bride is among the quintessential metafictional movies, full of plenty of asides, deconstructions mid-scene, and cuts to Falk and Savage reacting to the story. This makes the film both a satire and a love letter to fairy tale clichés, and enhances the romantic exchange and exhilarating swordfights. The script is also packed with witty banter and sharply written dialogue, best seen through Wallace Shawn's Vizzini, who leads the bandits, and engages in a battle of wits in which he goes off on a lengthy, nonsensical rant that is as hilarious as it is captivating. The Princess Bride Release Date September 25, 1987 Runtime 99 minutes Director Rob Reiner Writers William Goldman Producers Andrew Scheinman, Rob Reiner Budget $16 million Studio(s) 20th Century Distributor(s) 20th Century Main Genre Fantasy Executive Producer(s) Norman Lear