Comingsoon.net is headed where no one has been before to determine which fantastical film settings are the best of the best. Check out our selections in the gallery below!
A movie’s ability to transport the viewer to far-off places never ceases to amaze. Some audiences have never or will never see the real-life places films have been able to transport them throughout history, from the deepest depths of the ocean to the peaks of the highest mountains and everywhere in between. Still, no matter how or where viewers have traveled in their lives, nothing tops a film’s ability to take viewers to never-before-seen fantasy lands.
Medieval worlds where monsters and royalty walked the earth to places beyond the skies to stretches of tunnels beneath the earth, movies set in made-up places have the potential to charm and amaze even the most seasoned world travelers. It’s hard to top the feeling of experiencing a fantastical land on-screen for the first time. No one knows this better than the minds behind these films listed below.
made-up places
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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Based on the ever-popular series of books of the same name, Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings movie is a modern-day spectacle of epic proportions. There’s truly nothing quite like being immersed in writer J.R.R. Tolkien’s words fully realized on the big screen.
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Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Guillermo del Toro is no stranger to fantasy—it’s his wheelhouse, and he operates incredibly well within it. Pan’s Labyrinth is the greatest example of this, taking viewers deep inside a mysterious labyrinth filled with visuals unlike anything else in the director’s filmography.
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Spirited Away (2001)
Hayao Miyazaki might be the greatest animator to ever live (at least as far as the history of film is concerned). His coming-of-age fantasy film gives his studio the opportunity to show off just how good the filmmaker is at creating new worlds.
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Stalker (1979)
What’s most impressive about Soviet filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker is the fact that he was able to create its mythical land, The Zone, with a microscopic budget. Not only is it a time capsule from a land of political anxiety, but it’s a genuinely immersive film in its own right.
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The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Probably the most beloved entry in this slideshow, The Wizard of Oz is the movie everyone thinks of when trying to come up with the greatest movie set in a made-up place. The land of Oz is rich and immersive and truly spectacular.
