Elfae Spectrum | Other Types | Mixed Types and General Mythic/Magic | Non-fiction | Tangential

Carnival Row. (2019- ) A human detective and a faery rekindle a dangerous affair in a Victorian fantasy world, where the city's uneasy peace collapses when a string of murders reveals an unimaginable monster.
Darby O'Gill and the Little People. (1959) A wily old codger matches wits with the King of the Leprechauns and helps play matchmaker for his daughter and the strapping lad who has replaced him as a caretaker.
FairyTale: A True Story. (1997) Based on the case of the Cottingley fairy photographs. A pair of girls have magical encounters with faeries.
FernGully: The Last Rainforest. (1992) Forest sprites dwelling in a beautiful rainforest fight against a polluting corporation with the help of a human shrunk to their size. Comes on pretty strong with its ecological messages (you had to be more direct in the 90s!).
The Lord of the Rings. Little more probably need be said about Peter Jackson's lavish live-action films of the early 2000s. The greatest amount of "elfy" content is in the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), which might just be responsible for all those "WE ARE NOT ROLEPLAYING!" warnings on otherkin Yahoo Groups descriptions of the time. (To be fair, there were a LOT of groups that were dedicated to roleplaying Elves.)
Also check out the Rankin & Bass animated Return of the King (1980). This is not to be confused with the Ralph Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings (1978), which sports some, er, odd character design choices and stops in the middle of the story. (It was compressed from three parts to two and then United Artists refused to fund the second film.) In a way, the Rankin & Bass film finishes what was left undone. It's on the cheesy and sentimental side, but some of the images have really stuck with me, like the shining of Galadriel's phial and Elrond's circlet of stars. Even the non-canon songs they added are actually pretty good in my opinion ("Where there's a whip, there's a way!").
The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns. (1999) An American on holiday in Ireland is introduced to a world of leprechauns and fairies when they choose him to help make peace in their war.
Merlin. (1998) The legendary wizard Merlin tells his story of his war against Queen Mab of the Sidhe and the creation of Camelot.
A Midsummer Night's Dream. The adventures of four young lovers, a group of amateur actors, and their interactions with fairies on a moonlit night in the woods, with comedy revolving around mistaken identity and unrequited love. There are many adaptations of this well-known Shakepeare play; here are a couple of suggestions:
Directed by Peter Hall. (1968) A trippy, arty, sometimes confusing version by a director known for his avant-garde stage productions.
French production directed by Jean-Christophe Averty. (1969)
I've been advised against the Michael Hoffman production with Kevin Kline (1999).
Photographing Fairies. (1997) Also inspired by the Cottingley photographs, but a darker story than FairyTale and does not portray any of the real people involved other than Arthur Conan Doyle. After World War I, a war photographer investigates a photograph claimed to show a fairy. Unable to debunk it as he did the Cottingley photos, he visits the woman who gave it to him and there learns of a strange narcotic flower that enables him to actually see the erotic fairies.
DragonHeart. (1996) The sickly King Einon is wounded in a battle. The dragon Draco heals him by giving the young king half of his own heart. Some years later, Bowen, a dragonslayer, encounters Draco, and the two team up in a traveling act where Bowen "slays" Draco and then collects a reward from the town or village Draco had been "terrorizing". Bowen and Draco must save the kingdom from the rule of the now evil King Einon. For 1996, the special effects were very good. The sequel, DragonHeart: A New Beginning, isn't as bad as The Neverending Story II, but still nothing to write home about. I have no experience with the other three titles in the series, but wouldn't be surprised if they got progressively worse as such dragged-out franchises often do.
The Last Unicorn. (1982) A unicorn learns she is supposedly the last of her kind, and sets out on a quest to discover the truth. A live-action version has been in and out of production for, like, forever; don't hold your breath. (The site is actually still live on the web, but the state of it should tell you something about how likely it is the movie will ever get made.)
Lost Girl. (2010-2016) Gorgeous, charismatic Bo is actually a succubus who feeds on the energy of humans, sometimes with fatal results. Refusing to embrace her supernatural clan system and its rigid hierarchy, Bo is a renegade who takes up the fight for the underdog while searching for the truth about her own mysterious origins.
Princess Mononoke. (Mononoke-hime) (1997) While protecting his village from rampaging boar spirit, a confident young warrior is stricken by a deadly curse. To save his life, he must journey to the forests of the west, where he becomes embroiled in a war humans have been waging on the gods of the forest. There he encounters a wild and brave young woman, Princess Mononoke, who was raised by a wolf-god.
Raya and the Last Dragon. (2021) Long ago, in the fantasy world of Kumandra, humans and dragons lived together in harmony. However, when sinister monsters known as the Druun threatened the land, the dragons sacrificed themselves to save humanity. Now, 500 years later, those same monsters have returned, and it's up to a lone warrior to track down the last dragon and stop the Druun for good.
Song of the Sea. (2014) Ben, a young Irish boy, and his little sister Saoirse, a girl who can turn into a seal, go on an adventure to free the fairies and save the spirit world.
Stardust. (2007) In a countryside town bordering on a magical land, a young man makes a promise to his beloved that he'll retrieve a fallen star by venturing into the magical realm. Based on Neil Gaiman's novel.
The Water Horse. (2007) A lonely boy discovers a mysterious egg that hatches a sea creature of Scottish legend.
Mixed Types and General Mythic/Magic
The 10th Kingdom. (2000) The Nine Kingdoms are readying for the coronation of Prince Wendell of the Fourth Kingdom. An evil ex-queen turns him into a dog, but he escapes via a magic mirror into the previously unknown Tenth Kingdom -- modern-day New York City -- and meets waitress Virginia Lewis and her father. The three blunder back through the looking glass to a world where she encounters various characters from fairy tales and folklore.
Bright. (2017) In Los Angeles, humans live with orcs and elves in a world where fantasy creatures do exist. LAPD police officer Dayl Ward is the first human cop having the orc police officer Nick Jakoby as a partner. They must find a powerful wand before evil creatures do.
The Chronicles of Narnia. There are multiple adaptations of this beloved children's book series. Below are the late-2000s versions directed by Andrew Adamson and Michael Apted:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (2005) The four Pevensie children travel through a wardrobe to the land of Narnia and learn of their destiny to free it with the guidance of a mystical lion.
Prince Caspian. (2008) The Pevensies return to Narnia, where they are enlisted once again to help ward off an evil king and restore rightful heir Prince Caspian to the throne.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. (2010) Lucy and Edmund Pevensie return to Narnia with their cousin Eustace and meet up with Prince Caspian for a trip across the sea aboard the royal ship The Dawn Treader. Along the way they encounter dragons, dwarves, merfolk, and a band of lost warriors before reaching the edge of the world.
The Dark Crystal. (1982) "Another world, another time... In the Age of Wonder." A thousand years ago, the Crystal cracked, and the Skeksis appeared to rule the world with iron claws. An orphan Gelfling, Jen, raised by the gentle Mystics -- who have a mysterious connection to the Skeksis -- must go on a quest to find a missing shard with which to heal the Dark Crystal and restore balance to the world.
The Netflix series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019) wasn't bad; certainly it looked beautiful. "Return to the world of Thra, where three Gelfling discover the horrifying secret behind the Skeksis' power, and set out to ignite the fires of rebellion and save their world." (Since it was set before the events of the 1982 film, presumably the Gelflings were not successful in this -- spoilers!) The worldbuilding with the Gelfling tribes and their social hierarchy was interesting, but I thought it lacked heart, and I could have done without the gross-out humor and comic relief some of the Skeksis (and sometimes Mystics) were used for.
The Dragon Prince. (2018- ) Two human princes forge an unlikely bond with the elf assassin sent to kill them, embarking on an epic quest to bring peace to their warring lands. Despite the title, dragons don't actually figure that much, at least in the first two seasons; the eponymous prince is at first just an egg, the supposed theft of which is a bone of contention in the lands' wars. There is an interesting elemental system of kinds of magic and creative depictions of different elven cultures associated with each of them, as well as magic-wielding humans.
The Dresden Files. (2007-2008) A Chicago-based wizard works as a private investigator.
The Flight of Dragons. (1982) The realm of magic is being threatened by the realm of logic. A wizard, Carolinus, decides to shield it for all time, but the evil wizard Ommedon stands in his way. A young Boston writer named Peter Dickinson, the first man of both the realms of science and magic, quests to defeat Ommedon.
Howl's Moving Castle. (Hauru no ugoku shiro) (2004) When Sophie, a young woman, is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent yet insecure young wizard and his companions in his legged, walking castle.
Labyrinth. (1986) Sixteen-year-old Sarah, left home to mind her baby stepbrother Toby, speaks a wish for him to be taken away by the goblins. To her dismay, her wish is granted, and she has only 13 hours to solve the Goblin King Jareth's laybrinth if she wants to win back Toby. Features conceptual and costume design by Brian Froud and creature workshop art by Wendy Froud (Midener).
Ladyhawke. (1985) Philippe Gaston, a thief, escapes from a city dungeon, sparking a manhunt. He has nearly been captured when he is befriended by Captain Etienne Navarre, who has been hunted by the bishop's men ever since he fled with the Lady Isabeau, after whom the bishop lusted. They suffer from a curse that causes Navarre to be a wolf during the night and Isabeau to be a hawk during the day, so they can never be together. Navarre insists that Gaston help him re-enter the city and kill the heavily guarded bishop.
Legend. (1985) A demon seeks to destroy the last of the unicorns, marry a fairy princess, and create eternal darkness. It's up to wild forest boy Jack to stop him.
The NeverEnding Story. (1984) An imaginative boy bullied by his schoolmates dives into a wondrous fantasy world through the pages of a mysterious book. Quite different in character from the novel that inspired it, it's still a classic about the importance of dreams and fantasy. Forget the sequels.
Pan's Labyrinth. (2006) In Falangist Spain in 1944, the young stepdaughter of a ruthless army officer finds herself taken into an eerie fantasy world.
The Secret of Kells. (2009) Young Brendan lives in a remote medieval outpost under siege from barbarian raids. A celebrated master illuminator arrives carrying an unfinished book brimming with secret wisdom and powers. To help complete the magical book, Brendan must go on a dangerous quest into the enchanted forest, where he meets the mysterious young fairy-wolf-girl Aisling. Beautiful animation, and Aisling and her cat are cute, but I was a little disappointed by what the "secret" turned out to actually be.
The Secret of Roan Inish. (1994) 10-year-old Fiona comes to live with her grandparents in a small fishing village in Ireland. She learns of a local legend that an ancestor of hers married a selkie, and that years earlier, her baby brother was washed out to sea in a cradle. Then Fiona catches sight of a naked boy on the abandoned Isle of Roan Inish (the Isle of the Seals), apparently cared for by the seals, and determines to find out what is going on. Full of irish folklore and picturesque scenery.
Spirited Away. (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi) (2001) During her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.
Willow. (1988) Dwarf farmer and magician Willow Ufgood discovers a baby girl, who he soon learns is princess Elora Danan, destined to bring about the downfall of the evil Queen Bavmorda. Joined by his allies, Willow takes it upon himself to protect Elora from the Queen who intends to kill her in an attempt to avert the prophecy.
Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real. (2004) A British scientific team discovers a dragon's corpse in modern-day Romania. Presents itself as a nature special, not a story, though no such dragon was actually discovered; this is a "mockumentary" which has occasionally been known to fool people.
The Fairy Faith. (2000) Semi-documentary about faery beliefs and encounters in Ireland, England, Scotland, and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
The Modern Elven Way. (2018) Recording of a talk on elven magic given by the Silver Elves. Unfortunately the audio levels are very low (possibly the microphone was too far away) and Zardoa, especially, is very hard to hear.
Not directly related to any type of mythfolk or to myth/magic in general, but have potentially relevant themes or motifs, such as dreams, imagination, otherworlds, reincarnation, soulmates, psychic powers, or being unlike "normal people".
Alice in Wonderland. Many versions of this story have been produced for both film and television. Personally I'm fond of the Disney animated film (1951), and unfond of Tim Burton's 2010 production.
The Man Who Fell to Earth. (1976) An alien must pose as a human to save his dying planet, but a woman and the greed of other men create complications. Features David Bowie as the titular alien.
Martian Child. (2007) A science-fiction writer considers whether to adopt a hyper-imaginative, abandoned, and socially rejected 6-year-old boy who says he's really from Mars.
Mary Poppins. (1964) In turn of the 20th century London, a magical nanny employs music and adventure to help two neglected children become closer to their father. Based on events from the first four books in the Mary Poppins series, plus some things invented for the film.
The Matrix. (1999) When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence. Relevant in its ideas that the world you see is not the real world, and its rules can be bent and broken if you fully understand the illusion. Stick with The Matrix itself and skip the sequels.
Peter Pan. The Darling family children receive a visit from eternal child Peter Pan and his companion pixie Tinker Bell, who take them to Never Never Land, a place of fantastic adventure where there is an ongoing war with the evil pirate Captain Hook. Another widely-adapted story. I find Disney's animated version (1953) a little too goofy and childish (yeah, yeah, I know, it's basically about being childish...), and let us not speak of its problems with its representation of Indians (oy). Try P.J. Hogan's live-action version (2003), or Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991), which employs the twist of an adult Peter returning to Neverland when Captain Hook kidnaps Peter's own children.
Pleasantville. (1998) Two 1990s teenage siblings use a magical remote control and find themselves zapped into the brother's favorite 1950s sitcom, Pleasantville. A film about waking up to color out of a black and white complacency.
Powder. (1995) Harassed by classmates who won't accept his shocking appearance, a shy young man known as "Powder" struggles to fit in. But the cruel taunts stop when Powder displays a mysterious power that allows him to do incredible things. This phenomenon changes the lives of all those around him in ways they never could have imagined.
What Dreams May Come. (1998) A man is killed in an car accident, and enters Heaven. But when he discovers that his beloved wife Annie has killed herself out of grief over the loss, and is told that suicides go to Hell, he is determined to go to Hell to save his soulmate.
Yellow Submarine. (1968) The Beatles accompany Captain Fred in his yellow submarine to free Pepperland from the music-hating Blue Meanies. Utterly strange fantasy world with inventive pop art design and a message of the power of music and love. Uh, it's not about acid... right?
Last updated: 9/06/2021