37 fantastic fairy tale movies

The greatest fairy tale movies are often the ones that ignite your imagination while also telling a story that imparts a decent life lesson. Most of them are child-friendly, while some are strictly for adults. However, even those ones focused on the kids still frequently feature terrifying humans – cannibalistic granny, anyone? Still, most of these whimsical flights of fancy are harmless enough, provided their parables shine through all of that mob justice and burning pitchforks malarkey.

These picks are some of our favorite fairy tale films. They come from all decades, though there are few recent picks as these sorts of movies seem to have fallen out of favor with mainstream Hollywood. If you're looking for a warm blanket of a movie, you could do worse. So, sit back, slip off those enchanted slippers and grab a warm, somehow sentient mug of coffee – these are some of the greatest fairy tale films of all.

By Total Film staff