Now that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is out and has turned out to be a bona fide hit, you may be looking for other movies in a similar vein that will thrill and surprise you. Honor Among Thieves works so well in part because it clearly loves the role-playing game it’s based on, but it also doesn’t take itself or its fantasy world too seriously.
It strikes a careful balance that makes its world feel both fun and lived in, and these fantasy movies will hopefully scratch that same itch.
Labyrinth (1986)
David Bowie had a fascinating film career, and Labyrinth was one of his most fascinating roles. It’s set in a fantasy world where a young girl finds her wish that her younger brother be taken away is granted. After her wish is granted, she has 13 hours to solve a labyrinth in order to reverse it. The result is a surprisingly scary children’s film that also features many of the questing elements that Honor Among Thieves handles so well. The fantasy world is also wonderfully idiosyncratic and strange, and that’s in part thanks to Bowie’s singular presence.
The Lord of the Rings (2001)
Maybe the most obvious movies on this list, it’s nonetheless undeniable that much of the lore and world-building in the Dungeons and Dragons universe was part of Tolkien’s world first.
Honor Among Thieves is a lot lighter on its feet than Peter Jackson’s trilogy, but that doesn’t mean that The Lord of the Rings movies are at all humorless. Instead, they’re exactly the right combination of epic and endearing and have stood the test of time as one of the great fantasy trilogies ever brought to screen.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022)
One of the more recent titles on this list, The Last Wish may be surprising to some who didn’t hear about the buzz this movie received at the end of 2022. Following Puss in Boots as he realizes he’s now living the last of his nine lives, The Last Wish is surprisingly heavy on questing, and it also features a solid amalgam of fairytale characters.
It’s also almost shockingly well animated and surprisingly light on its feet, a combination that serves it exceedingly well. It’s not as deep in the specific lore of Honor Among Thieves, but it does feature a merry band united by a common cause in an exciting fantasy world.
The Black Cauldron (1985)
One of Disney’s more forgotten animated films, The Black Cauldron is also one of the darker animated movies the studio ever produced. The story follows a lowly peasant with dreams of becoming a knight.
After a pig who can see the future is kidnapped, the peasant unites with a princess and a sidekick to stop the movie’s dastardly villain from enacting his plan to unleash an army of the undead. The movie definitely isn’t perfect, but anyone looking for stories of epic quests will find that this Disney movie totally fits that bill.
The Green Knight (2021)
A much more unconventional fantasy film, The Green Knight is based on the stories of King Arthur, and follows Arthur’s headstrong nephew Gawain as he journeys to confront the titular green knight and face his own fears about mortality.
Despite its relatively small scale, The Green Knight features a number of stunning, often slightly surreal sequences, as well as a captivating central performance from Dev Patel. Although The Green Knight is not exactly a conventional tale, it’s one of the most interesting fantasy films of recent years.
