Collider highlights 10 underrated fantasy film masterpieces, from Mad God to The Green Knight

Collider has compiled a list of 10 underrated fantasy films it regards as masterpieces, spanning early animation to recent releases — from 1926's The Adventures of Prince Achmed to 2021 titles like Mad God and The Green Knight. The piece singles out Mad God (2021), a stop-motion epic that took a decade to make and follows a nameless protagonist called "The Assassin" into a steampunk Underworld with no conventional dialogue.

It also highlights Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010), based on the video game and Dante Alighieri's poem, noting each circle of Hell was handled by a different animation studio. Collider praises The Secret of NIMH (1982) for its deceptively dark, emotionally resonant story about a widowed mouse seeking help for her sick son, and calls The Green Knight (2021) — an adult Arthurian retelling centring on Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) — a visually arresting film that wrestles with duty, death and moral obligation.

The list recalls The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) as the oldest surviving animated film, made in a shadow-puppet style and entirely silent, while singling out Castle in the Sky (1986) as Studio Ghibli's first feature, featuring a girl with a magical amulet pursued by airship pirates.

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