10 Greatest Monsters In Fantasy Movies

The fantasy genre has seen its fair share of incredible monsters in movies, and these ten have been the best. Generally approached with an eye for imagination and with staggering levels of creativity, the best fantasy movies have introduced stunning characters that have challenged perceptions on what a monster can really be. Not all beasts are what they initially seem.

Monsters in horror movies have crafted one way of looking at these terrifying beings, primarily as bringers of death and destruction. Still, complex ideas have been able to permeate these works, like with the psychological paranoia examined throughout John Carpenter's The Thing. The best monsters are the ones that are not simply ghastly horrors beyond comprehension.

Filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro have used monsters to help tell compelling human stories. For every terrifying Pale Man, seen in Pan's Labyrinth, the director has subverted horror tropes with films like The Shape of Water. While a beastly and horrific design is an important starting place, there are much richer and more humane stories to be told.

What a monster is and does can be understood differently from story to story, but the best ones serve a necessary function to their tales. This list chronicles ten of the most interesting and greatest monsters ever seen in fantasy, whether because of their horrific design, their rich complexity, or the existential and visceral horrors that they represent.

The Monster In Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein

As mentioned above, Guillermo Del Toro has a way of exploring rich characterization and ideas through his monsters, and nowhere is this better done than in his Frankenstein movie. Played with rich emotion by Jacob Elordi, this Academy Award-nominated performance is emotional and stunning.

Truly, this film makes it clear that Frankenstein himself is the monster, not his creation. Instead, by the bounds of his twisted creation, the creature must contend with a world that is not made for him. He is cursed and abandoned, and his connection to his creator is all that persists.

This is done with brilliant effects and a sharp and nuanced portrayal, helping to make the monster in Frankenstein richer and more complex than ever before.

Death In Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

The villain in Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is one of the greatest movie monsters in recent years, and helps to elevate this animated feature into something truly special. Presented with haunting atmosphere and sounds, this personification of Death is chilling in its execution.

More than this, however, is how the monster is used throughout the film, and into its end. Death is a psychological horror that hangs as a shadow over Puss, and cannot be overcome. It is a reality that the hero of the film eventually must accept.

It is not Puss' time to go, but at some point it will be. Coming to terms with this in the film's end is powerfully resonant, and helps to elevate Puss in Boots: The Last Wish into one of the richest and most interesting animated films DreamWorks has ever produced.

The Beast In Beauty And The Beast

One of the most compelling ideas of a monster, the Beast from Disney's animated classic is manifested by a curse on a pampered prince. This takes the handsome prince's ugliness on the inside and transforms his outside to match, and it is only by overcoming this disconnect that he will ever be able to take back his old form.

Horrifying and threatening, the Beast's early appearances in the film highlight his brutal, animalistic design and the cruelty that has festered in his heart. However, meeting Belle and finding love with her helps him to break through, and rediscover his rich humanity.

A comment on monstrousness on the inside and out, Beauty and the Beast is a rich romance with a beautiful story at its core.

The Nothing In The Neverending Story

Manifesting in various ways throughout the film, the main antagonist of The Neverending Story is a terrifying, existential threat to curiosity, imagination, and dreams.

The Nothing manifests as a void, looking to annihilate the entirety of Fantastica. So long as humans lose their faith in their realms of fantasy, there grows more and more room for this terrifying entity to consume their world and erase existence for the beloved characters of the realm.

Less physical, and not reliant on a specific design, The Nothing represents the death of reading and imagination. In this, it is a very unique kind of monster that provides a curious reflection on the real state of the world to this day.

Displacer Beasts In Dungeons And Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is one of the best fantasy films in recent years, and was criminally underseen. Wrapped in the brilliant packaging of the franchise's Forgotten Realms, the film captured the magic of playing a game of D&D. The textures of its familiar creatures added to this.

In an Easter Egg-packed scene, before the heroes stuff themselves into a gelatinous cube, the movie features displacer beasts, a creature that has been a part of the D&D Monster Manual since the first edition in the 1970s. Panther-like creatures who can project deceptive images of themselves, these monsters are fearsome and fierce.

Seeing the lore of the familiar world played out helped to make Honor Among Thieves such a rich experience for seasoned fans of the game, even as the film worked for new audiences as well. It is a shame that a Dungeons & Dragons sequel is not set to happen anytime soon.

The Nazgûl In The Lord Of The Rings

The Lord of the Rings has its fair share of terrifying and complex monsters, including the horrific Balrog, but it is actually the Ringwraiths, or the Nazgûl, that best embody Tolkien's themes. A comment on the perversion of power, these haunting creatures were once men.

Transformed by their lust for immortality, given to them by Sauron's twisted nine rings, the Ringwraiths became immortally bound to their Dark Lord, and persisted only to do his bidding. Seeing their ghastly forms in The Fellowship of the Ring highlights their horrific changes.

In addition to such ideas, the creatures themselves have a haunting and terrifying design. Dressed in black, and bringing a shadow of despair with them wherever they go, the Ringwraiths are among the greatest monsters in the genre.

Toothless In How To Train Your Dragon

Both the animated and the live-action Toothless are among the greatest monsters ever seen in fantasy movies. Boasting a sweet, cat-like design, the dragon is initially presented as a horrifying threat, referred to as a Night Fury. These are among the most feared of all dragons.

Seeing Hiccup and Toothless meet and slowly build a relationship challenges this preconception. The monstrous nature of a beast can only persist so long as that creature is not understood. Connection tears down the walls between them, and Toothless becomes more adorable and sweet than terrifying.

Nothing has changed in the creature itself; the Night Fury is still a formidable dragon. However, by reframing what it means to be a monster, Toothless challenges the conceptions of Berk and audiences alike in what a fearsome beast might be.

Smaug In The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

A more frightening dragon than the previous entry, Smaug is perhaps the greatest highlight of the entire The Hobbit trilogy of films. Played with frightening passion by Benedict Cumberbatch, the monster in the Lonely Mountain of Erebor is the best dragon ever seen on screen.

Far more imbued with personality than many of the other dark enemies in Tolkien's work, Smaug is conniving, calculating, clever, and destructive. His enormous size and fire-breathing wrath only add to the already rich textures of his character.

Dragons can be allies or foes, but their design is always stunning. Facing a threat like Smaug is one of the most terrifying concepts in all of Tolkien's works.

The Dementors In The Harry Potter Series

The Harry Potter movies were some of the biggest and most beloved fantasy stories ever told, and the most terrifying monsters seen in the films were certainly the Azkaban guards, the Dementors. Feeding on emotions, and leaving only despair in their wake, these creatures play an important part in teh franchise stories.

Most frightening when seen early on, before they are explained, these soulless monsters leave their victims as hollow husks. However, Harry and his friends quickly learn that they can be resisted with the Patronus charm.

The Dementors then come to be seen as something that persists, but can be overcome, as an avatar for depression. With a haunting design and excellent effects, the Dementors are some of the most frightening monsters in all of film.

No-Face In Spirited Away

Spirited Away is arguably the greatest animated movie of the 21st century, and much of this is owing to the powerful execution of its monster, No-Face. A comprehensive vision of what these diverse entries culminate toward, No-Face is terrifying, but it is also a mirror.

No-Face is a lonely creature, and its form is influenced by everything around it. In the bathhouse, it is transformed by the emotions and desires of the employees, manifesting their greed in a physical form. This quickly turns destructive, and it is only by exposing No-Face to kindness that it is able to change.

The best monsters in fantasy say a great deal about the world itself, and No-Face embodies this directly. While there is tremendous complexity throughout the genre, and how it approaches creatures like this, Spirited Away provides the best commentary on what makes a monster in all of fiction.