Best Fantasy Films with Dragons

IMHO

I’m Amy Wolf, award-winning fantasy novelist bringing you the magic of transformation and a journey toward self-transformation. Also, I love dragons!

There have been a fair number of films which involve dragons: some with super-high budgets, and others so shlocky they go direct to streaming. But what’s the best of the bunch? IMHO, here they are, in descending order of flame-worthiness:

DRAGONSLAYER

Dragons or not, this is just a great all-around film. The script by Harwood & Robbins (Harwood penned Spielberg’s first real feature, Sugarland Express), boasts the immortal Ralph Richardson as a sorcerer and Peter MacNichol of Ally McBeal as his somewhat fumbling apprentice. Caitlin Clark gives us a viable bad-ass chick before they became popular, and the dragon effects by ILM are of course top-notch.

BEOWULF

The one directed by Robert Zemeckis. He might have been fired from Disney for too much performance capture, but Ray Winstone (rendered young) is superb and that is one nasty dragon!

REIGN OF FIRE

Hard to understand why this one didn’t perform better. Based on a spec script, it stars Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey in a post-apocalyptic London where dragons are on the loose. Very dark, but Bale is good as usual and the horde of dragons is rendered nicely.

DRAGONHEART

A very light, feel-good flick starring Sean Connery as the voice of the dragon. Just a bunch of fun.

THE HOBBIT (PART WHEREVER SMAUG APPEARS)

Don’t get me started on the three-part Hobbit, and why this slim volume required a bloated trilogy. Suffice to say that Smaug, voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, is cunning, terrifying, and cajoling at the same time. Loved his CGI hoard and Bilbo’s interaction with him. Just be sure to press “STOP” when Smaug exits the screen.

Honorable mentions: Pete’s Dragon, How To Train Your Dragon. A great film but not about dragons: Red Dragon. I worked on this last one at DEG (advertising).

Avoid: Eragon. The book and the movie.

Not as long of a list as I hoped for, but all the bolded ones are gems.

Happy Flaming,