Samuel J Harries

If you like your fantasy movies to be twisted, gruesome and ghastly – with stories of the dark arts and terrifying creatures – this guide to the 100 best dark fantasy movies of all time is perfect for you. In addition to a ranking of the top titles, we’ll show you where you can watch every movie on this list today on streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these iconic dark fantasy movies legally for free online.

The dark fantasy genre combines fantastical stories with themes of horror. Some of the most recognizable directors known for putting dark fantasy stories on the big screen include Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, The Shape of Water), Tim Burton (Coraline, Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands) and Jim Henson (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth).

Despite their themes of horror, there are plenty of dark fantasy movies that can be enjoyed by the whole family. A few examples include the animated adventure Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH, Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal, and George Lucas/Ron Howard’s Willow. Families with older children may also enjoy slightly darker adventures such as Roald Dahl’s The Witches, The Addams Family and Spirited Away.

If you’re interested in exploring some of the best dark fantasy movies produced outside of the United States, must-see titles include Onibaba (Japan), The City of Lost Children (France), Viy (Soviet Union) and In Fabric (United Kingdom). You can also enjoy dark fantasy anime movies such as Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, Wicked City, Berserk: The Golden Age Arc trilogy and Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Movie: Mugen Train.

Where can I watch the best dark fantasy movies?

Below you’ll find the latest streaming information for the 100 best dark fantasy movies. You can filter your results by release year, price, IMDb rating, age rating and run time.

The crime detective genre puts thrilling criminal investigations on the big screen. These movies follow a detective – who could be a hired private investigator, a member of law enforcement, or a complete amateur – as they attempt to uncover the mysteries of a crime. The genre includes plenty of incredible noir (The Lady from Shanghai, The Maltese Falcon) and neo-noir (Memories of Murder, Brick) movies, as well as light-hearted parodies (The Pink Panther) and action comedies (Rush Hour). Whether you’re looking for cinema’s bleakest noir movies or something for the whole family, you’ll find something for you with our list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time.

Many of the best crime detective movies are adaptations of famous novels. Among the most famous detectives successfully adapted for the big screen include Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, The Long Goodbye), Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) and Agatha Christie's Poirot (Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile). These characters have inspired many other movies on this top 100 list, so their movies are a great starting point for anybody who is new to the genre.

There are also plenty of options if you’re looking for unconventional detective crime stories that also belong to another genre. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner: The Final Cut is a neo-noir science fiction movie starring Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, who is tasked with hunting down a group of criminal replicants (androids). Another example is Matt Reeve’s The Batman, a superhero movie which tells the story of Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattison) as he searches for a dangerous criminal in Gotham City.

Where can I watch the best crime detective movies?

Below you can find our complete list of the 100 best crime detective movies of all time. We’ll show you where you can watch every movie online on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if you can watch any of these movies online for free, or if they are available to watch for free with ads.

Romantic comedies have provided audiences with love, laughter and heartbreak on the big screen for over a hundred years. Whether you’re looking for modern rom-coms such as Anyone But You and No Hard Feelings, or timeless classics like as Some Like it Hot and The Philadelphia Story, we’ve got you covered with this guide to the 100 best rom-coms of all time. We’ll show you where to watch every movie on this list, including the latest offers from streaming services such as Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. We’ll also show you if there are options to watch great rom-coms for free online.

Romantic comedies explore the subject of love in a humorous way. While there are iconic rom-coms from every decade since the silent era, the genre reached the peak of its box office powers in the 1990s. The wit and charm of writers such as Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail) and Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill) led to a slew of hit movies that are still synonymous with the genre today. Going back further, the works of Ernst Lubitsch (Ninotschka, Trouble in Paradise), Billy Wilder (The Apartment, The Seven Year Itch) and Howard Hawks (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday) have undeniably stood the test of time. All three directors have multiple movies in our top 100, and their work inspired many of the tropes audiences now expect from a great rom-com movie.

If you prefer unconventional love stories, there are still plenty of rom-coms to enjoy – including the video game inspired Scott Pilgrim vs the World, the ABBA-inspired musical Mamma Mia!, or the time-traveling romance About Time. There are also many must-see rom-coms produced outside of the United States; Hit movies such as Amélie (France), Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Italy) and Eat Drink Man Woman (Taiwan) are all among the best rom-coms of all time.

Where can I watch the best rom-com movies?

No matter what you’re looking for in your next rom-com movie night, you’ll find something for your watchlist with our best 100 rom-coms of all time. Here’s the complete list and where to watch them on streaming services in the United States.

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival takes place from May 15, 2024 until May 25 2024. In addition to screening many of 2024's best movies, this is also where production companies can strike distribution deals for upcoming theatrical and streaming releases. In this guide, we'll show you where you can watch every feature-length movie and short film at Cannes Film Festival 2024. While it may be some time before these movies are available to the public, this guide is regularly updated so you'll be the first to know when a movie is available on streaming services such as Prime Video, Netflix, Criterion, Apple TV+ and many more.

Which movies are screening at Cannes 2024?

In competition, this year’s lineup includes the latest movies from renowned directors such as Francis Ford Coppola (Megalopolis), Andrea Arnold (Bird), Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness), David Cronenberg (The Shrouds) and Paolo Sorrentino (Parthenope). The festival opener is Quentin Dupieux’s Second Act, while movies screening out of competition include George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Kevin Costner’s Horizon, an American Saga.

Who is on the jury at Cannes 2024?

Oscar-nominated writer/director Greta Gerwig presides over the 2024 Cannes film festival jury as president. Last year, the director’s Barbie became a worldwide hit, grossing more than $1.4 billion at the box office. Canadian filmmaker Xavier Dolan is President of the Un Certain Regard jury. The director has previously won several awards at Cannes, including the Jury Prize for Mommy in 2014 and the Grand Prix (the second most prestigious Cannes award after the Palme D’or) for It's Only the End of the World in 2016. At the time of writing, the full list of judges has not been released. Check out the full lineup for the Cannes Film Festival 2024 here:

Opener

• The Second Act - Quentin Dupieux

Competition

• All We Imagine as Light - Payal Kapadia

• Anora - Sean Baker

• Bird - Andrea Arnold

• Caught by the Tides (Feng Liu Yi Dai) - Jia Zhang-Ke

• Emilia Perez - Jacques Audiard

• Grand Tour - Miguel Gomes

• Kinds of Kindness - Yorgos Lanthimos

• L’Amour Ouf - Gilles Lellouche

• Limonov: The Ballad - Kirill Serebrennikov

• Marcello Mio - Christophe Honore

• Megalopolis - Francis Ford Coppola

• Motel Destino - Karim Ainouz

• Oh Canada - Paul Schrader

• Parthenope - Paolo Sorrentino

• The Apprentice - Ali Abbasi

• The Girl With the Needle - Magnus von Horn

• The Shrouds - David Cronenberg

• The Substance - Coralie Fargeat

• Wild Diamond (Diamant Brut) - Agathe Riedinger

Un Certain Regard

• Armand - Halfdan Ullman Tondel

• Black Dog (Gou Zhen) - Guan Hu

• The Damned” (Les Damnes) - Roberto Minervini

• L’Histoire de Souleymane - Boris Lojkine

• Le Royaume - Julien Colonna

• My Sunshine (Boku No Ohisama) - Hiroshi Okuyama

• Norah - Tawfik Alzaidi

• On Becoming a Guinea Fowl - Rungano Nyoni

• Santosh - Sandhya Suri

• September Says - Ariane Labed

• The Shameless - Konstantin Bojanov

• Viet and Nam - Truong Minh Quy

• The Village Next to Paradise - Mo Harawe

• Vingt Dieux! - Louise Courvoisier

• Who Let the Dog Bite? (Le Proces du Chien) - Laetitia Dosch

Cannes Premiere

• C’est Pas Moi - Leos Carax

• En Fanfare (The Matching Bang) - Emmanuel Courcol

• Everybody Loves Touda - Nabil Ayouch

• Le Roman de Jim - Arnaud Larrieu and Jean-Marie Larrieu

• Misericorde - Alain Guiraudie

• Rendez-Vous Avec Pol Pot - Rithy Panh

Out of Competition

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - George Miller

• Horizon, an American Saga - Kevin Costner

• Rumours - Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin

• She’s Has No Name - Chan Peter Ho-Sun

Midnight Screenings

• I, the Executioner - Seung Wan Ryoo

• The Balconettes (Les Femmes au Balcon) - Noemie Merlant

• The Surfer - Lorcan Finnegan

• Twilight of the Warrior Walled In - Soi Cheang

Special Screenings

• Apprendre - Claire Simon

• The Beauty of Gaza (La Belle de Gaza) - Yolande Zauberman

• Ernest Cole, Lost and Found - Raoul Peck

• L’Invasion - Sergei Loznitsa

• Le Fil - Daniel Auteuil

Where can I watch Cannes film festival 2024 movies?

While many of the movies showing at Cannes film festival 2024 won’t be available to watch in theaters or streaming online until after the festival has ended, we’ve already got you covered with a streaming guide. This includes the latest streaming details for every movie in all categories (in competition, out of competition, the opening act, Un Certain Regard, Cannes premieres, midnight screenings and special screenings).

In this guide, we’ll show you how to watch The Matrix franchise in order and show you where you can watch them on popular streaming services in the United States. We’ll also let you know if there are options to stream The Matrix movies legally for free.

In 1999, The Matrix became an overnight sensation when the directorial duo Lana and Lilly Wachowski unveiled their kung fu science fiction classic to the world. Starring Keanu Reeves as Neo, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, this groundbreaking movie grossed $460 million worldwide at the box office on a $63 million budget. This marked the beginning of an ongoing blockbuster franchise that is still beloved by fans today.

The Matrix franchise now includes a trilogy (The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions), an anthology of anime short films (The Animatrix) and a soft meta-reboot (The Matrix Resurrections). There are also tentative plans for an upcoming fifth installment by Warner Bros. Whether you’re watching The Matrix for the first time or rewatching the classic sci-fi franchise, this guide shows you where to watch them all online and the different viewing orders (release vs chronological).

How to watch The Matrix movies in order

If you only want to watch The Matrix feature-length movies, you can watch them chronologically in exactly the same way they were released.

• The Matrix (1999)

• The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

• The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

• The Matrix: Resurrections (2021)

This is a great viewing order if you are new to the franchise and want to enjoy the main storyline without getting overwhelmed by the franchise’s expanded universe of short films and canonical video games. However, the Wachowskis and Warner Bros. have always been ambitious when expanding The Matrix as a multimedia franchise. They have released several canonical stories in video games (Enter the Matrix, The Matrix Online and Path of Neo) and The Animatrix. In particular, The Animatrix offers some of the franchise’s best storylines that you won’t want to miss. So, if you’re ready to ‘take the red pill’ and go deeper, here’s how to watch the franchise in its entirety.

How to watch entire The Matrix franchise in chronological order

While watching the Matrix movies in order isn’t too complicated, this becomes more difficult if you want to watch the entire story unfold in every movie, short film and video game. Technically, The Matrix video games Enter the Matrix, The Path of Neo and The Matrix Online are all canonical, so we’ve included these in our complete Matrix timeline. Similarly, the short films included in The Animatrix anthology take place at various times throughout the story.

• The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part I and II

• The Animatrix: A Detective Story

• The Matrix

• The Animatrix: Kid's Story

• The Animatrix: Final Flight of the Osiris

• Enter the Matrix – Video game

• The Matrix Reloaded

• The Matrix Revolutions

• The Matrix: Path of Neo – Video game

• The Matrix Online: The Matrix Online – Video game

• The Animatrix: Beyond

• The Matrix: Resurrections

• The Animatrix: World Record – Exact timeframe unknown

• The Animatrix: Matriculated – Exact timeframe unknown

• The Animatrix: Program – Exact timeframe unknown

The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part I and II takes place during the human/machine war in the mid-21st century. According to Morpheus’ estimations, everything from The Animatrix: A Detective Story until The Animatrix: Beyond then takes place circa 2199. The Matrix: Resurrections picks up the story 18 years later. Three Animatrix shorts have no discernable timeframe, so the best option is to watch those last.

The Matrix documentaries

• The Matrix Revisited (2001)

Another important release for Matrix completists is The Matrix Revisited. This 2001 documentary shows the making of the first movie in 1999, revealing how many of the stunts were performed and explaining the movie’s revolutionary CGI techniques.

Where can I watch The Matrix movies in release order?

Below you can find the latest streaming information for every Matrix movie. You can check each movie’s availability on streaming services and find out if they are available online.

A disaster in space leads to unraveling mysteries back on Earth

After surviving a disaster in space, essential pieces of Jo's life are missing upon her return to Earth. In an attempt to recover everything she has lost, Jo embarks on a quest that could uncover the truth about the history of space travel.

Count Dracula (Nicolas Cage) loses control of his most faithful companion in Renfield

In modern-day New Orleans, a frightful and powerful Count Dracula is sitting back and letting his lackey do most of the work. As his loyal assistant, Renfield grows increasingly tired of his long list of chores the friction between boss and employee becomes unbearable. When Renfield falls in love with Rebecca, the pair must do their best to elude Count Dracula once and for all.

Beau faces a terrifying test in his quest to be free from anxiety

Set in an alternative present and spanning four generations, Beau is Afraid tells the story of an anxious but amiable man on an epic journey. Riddled with paranoia and anxiety, Beau is desperately trying to hurry home to see his mother. Beset with the physical manifestation of his greatest fears, Beau’s travel becomes his greatest test.

Robert McCall returns to face injustice in The Equalizer 3

Robert McCall is an avenging saint set loose on the criminal underworld. Pulled back from the brink of his quiet retirement, McCall is a mysterious figure who takes the law into his own hands and dishes it out with his fists. Even as he leaves the United States and find a home in southern Italy he sees injustice lurking and has no choice but to face it. Anyone who gets in the way of his mission is in more danger than they could ever imagine.

Villains, beware! Blue Beetle fights for justice throughout the cosmos

Jaime Reyes is a freshly graduated college student returning home to a new life. Facing new challenges and struggles, Jaime must find his purpose and position in society. What he doesn't know is that destiny has a plan for him. When a mysterious ancient scarab attaches to his spine, it gives him the ability to travel through space in blue alien armor. Suddenly the host of this symbiotic power, Jaime becomes a superhero protected and powered by this alien technology.