1920s Fantasy Movies

The mysterious Count Orlok summons a happily married real estate agent to his castle, located up in the Transylvanian mountains, to finalise a terrifying deal.

Based on Oscar Wilde's play, the films tells the story of how Salomé agrees to dance for King Herod in return for the head of John the Baptist.

Un Chien Andalou is an European avant-garde surrealist film, a collaboration between director Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali.

The Man in the Moon invites little Mickey and his dog over for a visit. They go on a magical trip and meet strange characters along the way.

Murnau’s epic adaptation of Goethe’s tragedy stands with Fritz Lang’s Metropolis among the supreme achievements of German silent cinema. Gösta Ekman plays the alchemist who, his faith shaken in a time of plague, is offered the gift of healing and eternal youth… in exchange for his soul.

As a young couple stops and rests in a small village inn, the man is abducted by Death and sequestered behind a huge doorless, windowless wall. The woman poisons herself in order to join him and is met by Death, who gives her three opportunities to prove that love is stronger than death, thereby freeing her beloved from his fate.

The legend of how colour came into the world.

A nameless thief falls in love with the Caliph of Bagdad's daughter. The Caliph will give her hand to the suitor that returns with the rarest treasure after seven moons. The thief sets off on a magical journey while, unbeknownst to him, another suitor, the Prince of the Mongols, is not playing by the rules.

In 16th-century Prague, a rabbi creates the Golem - a giant creature made of clay. Using sorcery, he brings the creature to life in order to protect the Jews of Prague from persecution.

An alcoholic, abusive ne'er-do-well is shown the error of his ways through a legend that dooms the last person to die on New Year's Eve before the clock strikes twelve to take the reins of Death's chariot and work tirelessly collecting fresh souls for the next year.

Taken from The Arabian Nights, a wicked sorcerer and the beautiful prince Achmed battle one against the other during a series of wondrous adventures.

A drunken gardener is challenged to a poker match by agents of the Devil; replete with location shots in Hades of the Devil giving orders to his agents on Earth.

Stop-motion photography blends with extreme slow-motion in Clair's first and most dada film, composed of a series of zany, interconnected scenes. We witness a rooftop chess match between Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray, a hearse pulled by a camel (and chased by its pallbearers) and a dizzying roller coaster finale. A film of contradictions and agreements.

Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.

An author's wishes are granted and make him rich, but it is a dream.

In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.

A mirror in a creepy old Bavarian castle has the magical ability to reveal the future of whoever looks into it while the full moon shines brightly. A series of characters looks into the glass to learn their fate, and most are unhappy with what they learn. In the end, the hero smashes the glass and then commits suicide. After he is dead, the mirror magically reassembles itself into a whole as before.

When Kriemhild, thirsty for revenge, marries to Etzel, king of the Huns, she invites King Gunther and his court to visit them, intending to finally take the life of the man responsible of her disgrace.

A farm girl learns she is a princess and is swept away by a tornado to the land of Oz.

"The plot introduces Omar as a leader of his people but deals rather with the love of his nephew, Ben Ali, for the fairest daughter of the tribe" (Variety, 7 Oct 1925, p44).

The first film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel about a land where prehistoric creatures still roam.

A young man travels to Mars in a rocket ship, where he leads a popular uprising against the ruling group with the support of Queen Aelita, who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.

A dutiful young fisherboy sets out to catch his grandfather's favorite fish, which leads him into an extraordinary encounter with a magic pot.

Mistaken identity, unrequited love, and the supernatural are combined in Shakespeare's classic set in the woods of Greece on a moonlit night.

Charley invents a machine that turns ordinary, breakable eggs into rubbery, unbreakable ones for transport. He builds a Rube Goldberg contraption of parts stolen from his neighbors. Rival egg companies want his invention, one of them stooping to sabotage to get it.

Based on Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick."

An impoverished girl tries to sell matches on New Year's Eve. Shivering with cold and unable to sell her wares, she sits in a sheltered nook. Striking a match to keep warm, the flame shows her what's beyond.

A king and queen celebrate their daughter’s birth, but a forgotten fairy curses her to die by pricking her finger on a spindle. Another fairy softens the curse, allowing her to sleep for a hundred years. Despite efforts to remove all spindles, the princess pricks her finger and falls asleep, along with the entire castle.

In a daydream, a shy bank clerk is led by a fairy into a subterranean world where people transform into animals and waxworks come to life. Lucie, his office crush, follows him but a bad fairy is intent on keeping them apart.

The Liars Club is holding their contest to see who can tell the most unbelievable story, with a gold medallion waiting to be awarded to the winner. Disappointed with the other members' bland efforts, one member brings in Charley Bowers, who has an extraordinary tale to tell. Charley claims to have invented a magic potion that enables him to grow absolutely anything by a simple grafting process, and he proceeds to tell his story to the club.

A female centaur enters a clearing in the woods and picks flowers. She is met by a male centaur and the two romance each other. They then seek parental consent for their union. Surviving footage of a now lost film.

A young girl who has caught a nightingale dreams about the songbird and its mate, and comes to realize that birds are not meant to be captive.

The miserly Scrooge changes his ways after being haunted by ghosts on Christmas Eve.

A clockmaker’s daughter daydreams of a magic world inside a clock.

The plot of the film is taken from the legend of the Azerbaijan Maiden Tower. According to legend shirvanshah fell in love with his daughter and wanted to marry her. Learning of this daughter Shirvanshah jumped from the top of the tower in the Caspian Sea.

This film tells the story of Gonthramm, a young knight who sought in vain for the Holy Grail and, on the way back to join his bride, Galeswithe, is met by Queen Banschi in the nightmarish realm of the Sylphs. Brum do Canto based the story on Charles-Marie Leconte de Lisle's Les Elfes.

The devil takes Maciste down to hell in an attempt to corrupt and ruin his morality.

Homeless wanderer Snooky the Human-Zee offers to work for food, but steals a freshly-made pie. Later, he comes to the aid of a railroad station agent, when thieves try to steal the payroll.

An adaption of a novel by Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie.

Obsessed with a general's wife, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust, struggling against his own eroticism.