The 2010s were a strange decade for fantasy movies. The Lord of the Rings had proved the genre could rule the box office, and the late 2000s were full of imitators trying to catch that lightning. Then the MCU and Disney’s live-action remakes arrived, and fantasy films took a backseat to superheroes and nostalgia.
That doesn’t mean the genre went quiet. Plenty of classics still came out, and a new list ranks the best of them. The ranking weighs execution, plots, performances, legacy, and overall quality. The result is a mix of animated hits, dark stop-motion stories, and a Chinese film that opened a whole market.
Ne Zha Opens a Door
The list includes Ne Zha (2019), the Chinese animated film that helped open its country’s animation to the global market. The movie reworks the classic tale of Ne Zha, a boy reborn from a demon orb.
The animation is the draw. It is beautiful, with expressive character designs, vibrant colors, and fast-paced action sequences, especially when Ne Zha and Au Bing unleash their full powers. The story can feel rushed in places, but it lands as an effective tale about nature vs. nurture, friendship, and self-sacrifice.
Laika’s Dark Touch
Two Laika films made the cut. ParaNorman (2012), the follow-up to the studio’s 2009 hit Coraline, follows Norman Babcock, a town pariah who can see and speak with the dead. When a vengeful witch’s spirit raises the dead, Norman and his friends must dig into Blithe Hollow’s shady history to stop her.
It is a dark family film done right. The story is about the dangers of fear and how it leads people to terrible things, like ostracizing those who don’t conform or punishing the innocent for what they might do. The side characters are more than they seem, and they form a charming little fellowship to face the undead apocalypse.
The Giant Puppet
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) is also on the list, another Laika stop-motion film and one that shows the full scope of the studio’s ambition. Kubo, a boy with a magical shamisen, must find his samurai father’s armor after his grandfather, the Moon King, orders his aunts to attack him.
One of the film’s obstacles was literal. A titanic skeleton guardian required a model sixteen feet tall and weighing 400lbs, making it one of the largest stop-motion puppets ever built. Beyond the technical achievement, the story is a bittersweet journey about grief, loss, memory, and the power of stories.
Coco’s Family Fight
Pixar’s Coco (2017) lands on the list as one of the studio’s best films of the decade. Miguel, a young Mexican boy, wants to be a musician like his hero Ernesto de la Cruz, but his family banned music after an ancestor abandoned them. After trying to steal de la Cruz’s guitar from a museum, Miguel is cursed and transported to the Land of the Dead.
He needs a family blessing to return before sunrise. He refuses the help of his great-great-grandmother if it means giving up music, and instead teams up with Héctor, an eccentric musician who needs Miguel’s help to visit his daughter before she forgets him.
The film’s strength is its emotion. Miguel’s struggle to find acceptance in his family while pursuing his dream is relatable to anyone who has faced that tension. The music-hating family is presented as extreme at first, but they become more sympathetic as the backstory unfolds.
What the Decade Meant
The context matters here. From 2000 to 2003, The Lord of the Rings topped the box office and proved fantasy could be a blockbuster genre. Then 2001 brought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Shrek, which caught audiences with its satirical take on the fairy tale tropes Disney had used to dominate the 1990s.
That led to a boom of fantasy media as everyone tried to recreate those early hits, with varying success. The 2010s were different. The MCU and Disney remakes rose, and fantasy films took more of a backseat than in the previous decade. The genre carved out space on TV instead, following the success of Game of Thrones.
The list makes the case that fantasy films never went away, even if they were quieter. The classics still came out, and they delighted audiences then and now.
The Known Rankings
The list runs from 15 down to 1, and the excerpt covers the first four spots. Ne Zha sits at 15, ParaNorman at 14, and Kubo and the Two Strings at 13. Coco is at 12.
The remaining slots are not covered in the excerpt. The ranking is based on execution, plots, performances, legacy, and overall quality, but the specific order of the top eleven films is not given.
What Makes the Cut
The films that made the list share a few traits. They have strong emotional cores, whether that is Miguel’s family fight in Coco or Kubo’s grief in Kubo and the Two Strings. They push their mediums, like the giant puppet in Kubo or the vibrant animation in Ne Zha. And they tell stories that hold up beyond their initial release.
ParaNorman shows how a family film can be dark without losing its heart. Coco shows how a story about death can be warm and catchy. Ne Zha shows how a classic myth can be reworked for a new generation.
“It’s a story about the dangers of fear and how it can lead people to do terrible things.”
That line, about ParaNorman, captures the film’s central theme. Fear drives the town’s cruelty toward Norman. The best fantasy of the decade used monsters and magic to talk about real human failings.
The full list is worth reading for the complete ranking. For now, the takeaway is simple: the 2010s were a quieter decade for fantasy at the box office, but the films that did arrive were built to last.
Source: collider.com
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