The 15 Best Sword And Sorcery Movies, Ranked

Fantasy is a hard nut to crack. Where science fiction can build on the rust and chrome of worlds we know, fantasy asks us to envision something new, often helped along by tidbits of real world history (as many fans of George R.R. Martin know quite well). To bring these worlds to life on screen requires more magic than words on a page, making the special effects budget blow the king's purse wide open.

When it works, it's something special. We get to see impossible worlds, meet cultures and countries where the riddle of steel and the law of chivalry thrive. We take to skies full of dragons, and sandy deserts full of bandits. Of this grand niche, the sword and sorcery movie is the most approachable, with a down to earth ruffian flair. The distinction between this and high fantasy is slim, but for our purposes, if the world and its central characters aren't able to smoke with the wizards, it's probably lower fantasy. So, before you ask, the Elves of Middle-earth and their godly wizard buds are too cool for this crowd of fifteen smashing sword and sorcery films. We wouldn't have said no to seeing Aragorn in barbarian leather, though.

Here are the 15 best sword and sorcery movies, ranked

"Krull" is an amazing movie. This is not to say it's good; it's a lumpy two hours with some dodgy acting on the part of its less than remarkable lead, Ken Marshall. It's also not one to miss. The plot is a jumbled mess that collides so many fantastically weird moments together that if you find yourself bored with where the movie currently seems to be going, just wait a few minutes. You have no idea what's next.

Yet certain set pieces continue to astound. Freddie Jones (father of MCU star Toby Jones) gets a stunning sequence where he visits his ex, an enchantress (funny enough, played by fellow Lynchian "Dune" alum Francesca Annis) who forces him to navigate a terrifying spider's web for the answers he seeks. The fire ponies, which ignited the imagination of many an '80s kid, don't see their effects hold up as well. What will hold up, however, is rediscovering both Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane in early roles, and the realization that this silly sorcery epic also has a pulpy science fiction heart buried inside of it.

Hardcore fantasy fans (and Robert Rodriguez) know who artist Frank Frazetta is. As a user on Tumblr once aptly put it, the man loved bodies and hated clothes. If you saw a Frazetta piece where the central figure was wearing full pants, it was a cry for help. He's the reason we'd picture Conan the Barbarian looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger, even if Arnold never existed.

More niche to the world of fantasy, however, is Ralph Bakshi. Not that the king of intricate rotoscope art is an unknown here, but his strange vision of "The Lord of the Rings" coupled with "Wizards" meant that him collaborating directly with Frazetta for 1983's "Fire and Ice" is a bit of a twist. So are the results, which are... bizarre.

It's a mess of a movie with some good bits by writers Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas, masters of the modern Conan story. It's also less than progressive, with copious amounts of sexual content and some pretty iffy stuff about 'subhumans.' And yet, it's worth an honest watch, simply because it is Frazetta's art come so fully to life. Just put your social awareness on a shelf for a bit.

What was in the water in the early '80s, and can we put it back in? "The Beastmaster," best known for being the movie to keep the fledgling HBO ("Hey, Beastmaster's On!") service afloat till it became a juggernaut, is sword and sorcery silliness at its finest. Marc Singer stars as our Herculean knock-off, Dar, who can speak with animals. He uses this gift, and his glistening muscles to take on the underlings of the evil wizard, Maax.

Maax is played by the voraciously hammy Rip Torn, and if this alone don't have you checking to see if this is streaming, hold on. Dar handles fistfuls of ferrets, and they're delightfully named Kodo and Podo. There are real eagles doing stunts. There's a tiger that's been painted to look like a panther. Best of all, it's directed by Don Coscarelli, the king of camp. "The Beastmaster" is second only to Coscarelli's finest film of all, "Bubba Ho-Tep." Love it with us.

Infamously considered the worst of the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan saga – in which Arnold doesn't even play Conan, due to a rights issue — "Red Sonja" is a lot of fun when approached correctly. No, statuesque star Brigette Nielsen is not skilled enough to carry the film, approaching her lines with a woodenness that would kill at an open mic night hosted by Lowe's, but damn, she does look great as a woman powerful enough to dominate any dude.

Shoveling Arnold in to shore up the movie is insulting. Instead of embracing camp potential, the cast force their way through a too-serious script. As ever, however, this is not a problem the villains face. Sandahl Bergman, previously Conan's love, Valeria, eats the movie whole as mad queen Gedren, complete with gloriously over the top outfits. The only genuinely bad part of this movie is the subplot with the child prince and his bodyguard, which is not the fault of thirteen-year-old Ernie Reyes Jr. Still, it's a movie with a certain kind of charm.

"Warcraft" might qualify as high fantasy, if the entire franchise wasn't as pro-Horde as God intended. Seen from the perspective of Go'el, better known as Thrall, the true protagonist, the war for Azeroth is a war for nature itself, struggling for balance as refugees from a fallen world make new lives across its fertile fields. Don't tell us this is Horde propaganda, stinky Elf.

Director Duncan Jones offers a love letter to the franchise, setting "Warcraft" in the generation before Thrall takes charge. His parents get to witness the mess that made us all into MMO junkies, as the wizard Medivh (Ben Foster) falls into corruption and helps the orc warlock Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) bring the Horde to Azeroth. The rest of the cast is wildly talented for what's asked of them, from "Preacher" star Dominic Cooper to Travis Fimmel, "Vikings" hero.

Although too serious at times, "Warcraft" isn't just an homage to the franchise it's based on, but a genuine bit of fun to watch. The critical response disagrees, but it found a new audience on Netflix in 2024. If you knew what it was like to raid Karazhan, tilted to your ears on the vice of your choice, this is a cuddly film that'll have you missing your fancy mount collection.

"Conan the Destroyer" was pushed out two years after the original hit, and it shows. With a fast turnaround, the worst lessons were taken to heart. From chasing a PG-rating to broaden the potential audience, to working with a more light-hearted script, it wasn't the guts and gore follow-up we deserved. But it's not a crime against cinema, and it shouldn't have blocked the King Conan finale we still deserve.

While only Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mako return as Conan and his wizardly advisor, the new additions are great. Grace Jones is hard to beat as Zula, a warrior with a feral, fearless perspective on the world, but debut actor Olivia d'Abo handles her naïve princess role well enough to prepare her for a future of taking on both John de Lancie's Q in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and Vincent D'Onofrio on "Criminal Intent." Even veteran character actor Tracey Wallace takes the comedy relief rogue and makes him likable.

The plot is creaky in places, and not all of the comedy lands. There's still something genuine about this flick that works, and Arnold was never as likable and powerful in multiple ways as he was as Conan.

To truly enjoy the rough and tumble nature of sword and sorcery flicks, you gotta let yourself get real weird with it once in a while. It's a genre that supports playfulness and originality in its settings, and Sam Raimi nailed it when he took his gory, goopy, cult horror franchise back to the Dead — whoops! — we mean Dark Ages.

Veteran Deadite slayer Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) is just the right idiot to take the fight to the armies of the dead at the side of an improbable vision of King Arthur. With a chainsaw hand as his sword, the correct version of the Necronomicon not at his side, and Sam Raimi's Alleged Car, that haggard Delta 88 Oldsmobile, serving as his steed, Williams is a barbarian to the core, but he fakes it well enough to save the day and earn one of the best finale scenes in cinema. Hail to the King, indeed.

Like a couple other films on this list, we're pushing the specific definition of sword and sorcery away from barbarians and low magic and finding ourselves dangerously close to high fantasy. But the once-bankable Dennis Quaid portrays a fallen knight turned slayer-for-hire, Sir Bowen, in a world where the magic is fading and the old code of chivalry is all but dead. Yet one dragon remains to be hunted by the down on his luck Bowen, and Sean Connery's stentorian tones make this last dragon, Draco, into a living ghost of the lost world of high magic.

Although the plot eventually stumbles towards the downfall of a brutal, petulant king (David Thewlis), Draco and Bowen take a good while to share one brain cell on the road together, playacting dragon hunts for fame and fortune. Along the way, they're blessed with some of the best actors in the industry, from the lamented Pete Postlethwaite, Jason Isaacs and, cinema nerds, look at this, Julie Christie was lured out of her temporary retirement. Light on magic, thick with wistfulness, and loaded with some pretty great sword fights, it earns an honorary place outside of its usual niche, and it's easily one of the best dragon movies.

Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, and a young Clancy Brown chew their way across continents and centuries in "Highlander," bringing their fantastical sword and sorcery infighting to urban New York City. The premise is hardwired into our brains by now: immortals are bound to hunt and behead each other until only one remains, avoiding sacred ground and always using swords to do the deed because this is cool as hell. The winner earns the Prize, which, after decades of bizarre franchise creep, is about as well defined as the room of wishes in "Stalker."

No matter. The point is, Lambert, as Connor MacLeod, is traumatically introduced to life as an immortal. He's eventually given some salve by his time with the globe-trotting Ramirez (Connery), who gets his sword skills up to snuff so he can tangle properly with the barbaric Kurgan (Brown) the next time they meet. To cap off this absurd yet perfect masterpiece is an equally immortal soundtrack by Queen. Who wants to live forever? Pass that sword, dude, we'll take the shot.

First of all, don't set us off on the unfairness around the Disney+ sequel series. "Willow" was the fantasy movie for Gen X kids, and thus protected by a thick armor of nostalgia and its own sweet-natured goofiness. To see that spirit revived for an eight episode season, canceled, and then purged from the streaming library is some real Queen Bavmorda crap. That's our childhoods you just ripped away and shoved into a vault, Bob Iger.

The original movie, starring Val Kilmer at his wildly hottest and Warwick Davis at his most charming, remains to be savored. Like "Dragonheart," the world of magic is at a low ebb, and what remains is in the hands of imprisoned enchantresses and evil queens. Willow, a Nelwyn with dreams of being a grand sorcerer, ends up on a loose hero's journey complete with a dipstick 'knight' and a pair of idiotic wet rats that dare to call themselves fae brownies. The results are magical, a delight that reminds us that being silly can be heroic.

After a string of Uwe Boll-esque movies many years previous, no one had high hopes for a "Dungeons & Dragons" movie, especially D&D fans increasingly unhappy with license ownership changes and ever-greedier monetization. Thus, the resulting film, "Honor Among Thieves," is a miracle in a sea of bear druid poop. Featuring Chris Pine as a Bard looking to provide for his daughter alongside the utterly humorless "Bridgerton" star Rege-Jean Page as a Paladin, it's not just a funny version of a game thousands of us know and love. It's earnest to the point of enchantment, subverting a thousand crappy tropes in order to place one highest above all: your family is what you make of it, and you make it that way with love.

That's the warm embrace this fandom deserved. Best of all, it's served up with a healthy dose of practical, almost '80s-style throwback effects. Jarnathan the aarakocra (bird guy) and the catlike tabaxi families are all in-camera beauties, and the sight of natural lights and honest sword fights is like an elixir. Especially after what 2024 has been like, we deserve a sequel. It's a truly medicinal movie.

Dev Patel is a young, uncertain Sir Gawain, a knight constantly on the cusp of burdening his royal uncle, King Arthur (Sean Harris) with his childish habits. But his mother (Sarita Choudhury), heavily implied to be the witch Morgaine, sets up an intervention. On Christmas comes the Green Knight (Ralph Ineson), a towering tree-man who wants to play a game with the King's men. Full of the need to prove himself, Gawain takes the Green Knight's gag way too far and is now bound to follow-up with what may be his own beheading in a year's time. And you were mad about finding socks under the tree.

Dreamlike and deeply weird, "The Green Knight" is mesmerizing take on a classic Arthurian myth and goes to some unheard of places with it. Digging way down finds a discussion about what makes an honorable man, and wow, does Gawain drag his feet through the lesson. But along the way is just enough sword and sorcery to make this the most artsy low fantasy flick of the last twenty years, while still a banger to watch.

Open up a book on chivalric history, and honestly, you won't find a picture of Rutger Hauer there. Probably. Nonetheless, he shines as the bitter guard captain Navarre, a figure of both nobility and rage, ready to fight God's own servants just to be reunited with his wife, Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer). The problem is that one of God's own, Bishop Aquila, had no problems using the Devil's work to turn Isabeau into a hawk in the day and Navarre into a wolf by night. Navarre, with the same brutalist energy Hauer brought to "Flesh+Blood," is going to fix this. Bloodily, if necessary.

Matthew Broderick, as improbable here as Keanu Reeves in "Dangerous Liaisons," nonetheless makes his too-modern charm work as a thief dragged into this theological dispute. He's supported by a romance too elegant to feel soppy and a world of magic too subtle to disbelieve. It's another film where love is the truest curse breaker, and it remains a classic example of fantasy filmmaking that no fan should miss.

The real star of "Dragonslayer" is legendary puppeteer Phil Tippett, who reinvented everything about his art to create what remains the biggest, baddest, and absolute best dragon to be realized on the screen. While the human cast deserves their laurels, including veteran character actor Peter MacNicol as a twerpy sorcerer's apprentice, the malevolent Vermithrax Pejorative is the deadly dragon queen reigning supreme at the twilight of magic.

God, once again, is draining away the shadow world of powers and impossibilities, but unfortunately, faith in Him (embodied here, in some amusing post-"Star Wars" irony, via Emperor Palpatine actor Ian McDiarmid as a devout monk) has created just enough of a schism to leave a world where a dragon can exist, but not enough sorcerers to deal with it. MacNicol's ancient, frail master is the last wizard alive, and thus victory is riding on some pretty hard odds. Sometimes oddly funny, but always astounding, "Dragonslayer" is one of Guillermo del Toro's favorite movies.

You knew Arnold Schwarzenegger, in one of his most iconic roles as Conan the Cimmerian, was going to be at the top of this list. You're as wise as his unnamed wizard companion, and as beautiful as Valeria, his roguish partner. But none of us are as cunning and charismatic as James Earl Jones's incredible Thulsa Doom.

Thulsa Doom knows how to work a set of armor, and how to prove to the world that flesh is stronger than steel. Unfortunately, he's also megalomaniacally evil and wants to prove that he should control the world (so timely), so we're going to need the laconic but powerful Conan to stop him by any means necessary (help us, Arnold). 

"Conan the Barbarian" remains the benchmark for sword and sorcery, treating everything with an earthy realness yet laying on the magical camp. It's funny, earnest, regressive, and yet inspiring, all at once. It's the ultimate fantasy comfort food movie, and while no one can fault Jason Momoa for giving a revival of the franchise his very best try, there's a reason we keep coming home to our one true king, still destined to wear the crown of Aquilonia upon a troubled brow.