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Best Fantasy Movies of the 1950s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
40 fantasy films from the 1950s are in our catalog; the 40 best are ranked below. Top of the list is The Seventh Seal (1957), at 8.1 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 7.0. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Brigadoon, 6.8 on IMDb against 49 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Seventh Seal '1957 | Fantasy / Drama | 8.1 | 93% | 88 | 8.1 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 2 | Scrooge '1951 | Fantasy / Drama | 8.1 | 86% | - | 7.4 | Brian Desmond Hurst |
| 3 | Ugetsu '1953 | Fantasy / Drama / Mystery | 8.1 | 100% | - | 8.0 | Kenji Mizoguchi |
| 4 | The Red Balloon '1956 | Comedy / Drama / Fantasy | 8.1 | 96% | - | 7.7 | Albert Lamorisse |
| 5 | Harvey '1950 | Comedy / Fantasy | 7.9 | 88% | 79 | 7.7 | Henry Koster |
| 6 | Orpheus '1950 | Romance / Fantasy / Drama | 7.8 | 97% | - | 7.7 | Jean Cocteau |
| 7 | Miracle in Milan '1951 | Comedy / Fantasy / Drama | 7.6 | 93% | 78 | 7.3 | Vittorio De Sica |
| 8 | The Beauty of the Devil '1950 | Drama / Fantasy / Comedy | 7.3 | - | - | 7.2 | René Clair |
| 9 | Night of the Demon '1957 | Fantasy / Horror / Mystery | 7.4 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Jacques Tourneur |
| 10 | Cinderella '1950 | Fantasy / Animation / Romance | 7.3 | 95% | 85 | 7.1 | Clyde Geronimi |
| 11 | Alice in Wonderland '1951 | Animation / Fantasy | 7.3 | 82% | 68 | 7.2 | Clyde Geronimi |
| 12 | The Snow Queen '1957 | Animation / Fantasy | 7.5 | - | - | 6.8 | Lev Atamanov |
| 13 | Peter Pan '1953 | Animation / Fantasy | 7.2 | 79% | 76 | 7.2 | Clyde Geronimi |
| 14 | Sleeping Beauty '1959 | Fantasy / Animation / Romance | 7.2 | 90% | 85 | 6.9 | Clyde Geronimi |
| 15 | 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea '1954 | Sci-Fi / Fantasy | 7.2 | 91% | 83 | 7.1 | Richard Fleischer |
| 16 | Broom-Stick Bunny '1956 | Animation / Comedy / Fantasy | 7.7 | - | - | 6.8 | Chuck Jones |
| 17 | Donald in Mathmagic Land '1959 | Animation / Fantasy / Comedy | 7.8 | - | - | 7.3 | Hamilton Luske |
| 18 | The White Reindeer '1952 | Fantasy / Horror | 6.9 | 100% | - | 6.6 | Erik Blomberg |
| 19 | The Tales of Hoffmann '1951 | Musical / Fantasy / Drama | 7.1 | 85% | - | 7.1 | Michael Powell |
| 20 | The Twelve Months '1956 | Fantasy / Animation | 7.4 | - | - | 6.3 | Ivan Ivanov-Vano |
| 21 | Old Man Khottabych '1957 | Fantasy | 7.1 | - | - | 7.0 | Gennadi Kazansky |
| 22 | Journey to the Beginning of Time '1955 | Fantasy / Sci-Fi | 7.1 | - | - | 7.2 | Karel Zeman |
| 23 | The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome '1954 | Fantasy / Musical | 7.0 | - | - | 6.4 | Kenneth Anger |
| 24 | Pandora and the Flying Dutchman '1951 | Romance / Drama / Fantasy | 6.9 | 67% | 81 | 6.8 | Albert Lewin |
| 25 | Darby O'Gill and the Little People '1959 | Fantasy / Romance | 7.1 | 100% | 80 | 6.7 | Robert Stevenson |
| 26 | The 7th Voyage of Sinbad '1958 | Action / Fantasy | 7.0 | 100% | - | 7.0 | Nathan Juran |
| 27 | Journey to the Center of the Earth '1959 | Fantasy | 7.0 | 84% | - | 6.9 | Henry Levin |
| 28 | Brigadoon '1954 | Musical / Fantasy / Romance | 6.8 | 75% | 49 | 6.6 | Vincente Minnelli |
| 29 | The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. '1953 | Fantasy / Musical | 6.7 | 83% | - | 6.2 | Roy Rowland |
| 30 | Ulysses '1954 | Fantasy | 6.6 | 52% | - | 6.6 | Mario Camerini |
| 31 | Two Men and a Wardrobe '1958 | Drama / Comedy / Fantasy | 6.7 | - | - | 6.3 | Roman Polanski |
| 32 | Bell, Book and Candle '1958 | Comedy / Fantasy / Romance | 6.8 | 81% | - | 6.6 | Richard Quine |
| 33 | Tom Thumb '1958 | Musical / Fantasy | 6.5 | 100% | - | 6.4 | George Pal |
| 34 | Around the World in 80 Days '1956 | Comedy / Fantasy / Romance | 6.7 | 72% | 69 | 6.7 | Michael Anderson |
| 35 | Knights of the Round Table '1953 | Romance / Action / Fantasy / Drama | 6.2 | 50% | - | 6.0 | Richard Thorpe |
| 36 | Jack and the Beanstalk '1952 | Comedy / Fantasy / Musical | 5.8 | 43% | - | 5.7 | Jean Yarbrough |
| 37 | The Shaggy Dog '1959 | Comedy / Fantasy | 6.4 | 68% | 45 | 6.3 | Charles Barton |
| 38 | Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy '1955 | Horror / Comedy / Fantasy | 6.2 | 25% | - | 5.9 | Charles Lamont |
| 39 | Hercules '1958 | Fantasy / Action | 5.4 | - | - | 5.1 | Pietro Francisci |
| 40 | Santa Claus '1959 | Fantasy / Comedy | 2.7 | 40% | - | 6.8 | René Cardona |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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Other genres in the 1950s
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Directors on this list
Ingmar Bergman Kenji Mizoguchi Henry Koster Jean Cocteau Vittorio De Sica René Clair Jacques Tourneur Clyde Geronimi Richard Fleischer Chuck Jones Hamilton Luske Michael Powell
Actors on this list
Gunnar Björnstrand James Stewart Jean Marais François Périer Michel Simon Dana Andrews Kirk Douglas James Mason Mel Blanc June Foray Clarence Nash Ava Gardner