Best Fantasy Movies of 1980

A football player and his mates travel to the planet Mongo and find themselves fighting the tyranny of Ming the Merciless to save Earth.

A beautiful muse inspires an artist and his older friend to convert a dilapidated auditorium into a lavish rollerskating club.

After an American family moves to an old country manor in rural England, one of the daughters is tormented by the spirit of the owner's long lost daughter, who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago during a solar eclipse.

The story of a woman who survives the car accident which kills her husband, but discovers that she has the power to heal other people. She becomes an unwitting celebrity, the hope of those in desperate need of healing, and a lightning rod for religious beliefs and skeptics.

Two Hobbits struggle to destroy the Ring in Mount Doom while their friends desperately fight evil Lord Sauron's forces in a final battle.

George Orr, a man whose dreams can change waking reality, tries to suppress this unpredictable gift with drugs. Dr. Haber, an assigned psychiatrist, discovers the gift to be real and hypnotically induces Mr. Orr to change reality for the benefit of mankind --- with bizarre and frightening results.

A mysterious door in the basement of the Hercules house leads to the Sixth Dimension by way of a gigantic set of intestine. When Frenchy slips through the door, King Fausto falls in love with her. The jealous Queen Doris takes Frenchy prisoner, and it is up to the Hercules family and friend Squeezit Henderson to rescue her.

In this modern-day version of the Rasputin story, David Hemmings plays an up-and-coming senator, Nick Rast, whose young son is terminally ill with leukaemia. A mysterious faith healer, Gregory Wolfe, appears and seems to cure the boy. Rast's wife Sandy falls in love with Wolfe, but the powerful interests behind Rast's career, represented by geriatric monster Doc Wheelan are less happy with events.

The adorable little VW helps its owners break up a counterfeiting ring in Mexico.

When Rupert and his friend Amelia find the new substitute teacher doing odd things, they discover that she is actually a witch with a magical talking cat who sought them out in order to stop an evil coven of witches from destroying her.

A young man wishes he could get away and his wish is granted in a globetrotting, song singing way.

A family of gnomes preparing for the wedding of their eldest son must engage in a battle of wits with an enemy family of vicious trolls.

Prospero, the true Duke of Milan is now living on an enchanted island with his daughter Miranda, the savage Caliban and Ariel, a spirit of the air. Raising a sorm to bring his brother - the usurper of his dukedom - along with his royal entourage. to the island. Prospero contrives his revenge.

Browning is a PI with a bad cold, who's sent to investigate a case by a mysterious client. He stumbles across the body of a young woman and is stabbed to death, and when he wakes up in heaven, they tell him he's "marginal material," and they can only decide on his final destination through one last assignment: to go back and solve his own murder. As a dog. A cute fluffy little dog (Benji). Undaunted, Browning begins to investigate the case as best he can around his canine disabilities (dialing the phone presents a special challenge) to solve the murders, save the girl, and see justice done.

A puppy encounters a series of tragedies and losses brought on by the evils of uncaring humans as she tries to find a family and a place to call home.

As Geppetto prepares for Christmas, Pinocchio joins a puppet show to earn money for a present. There he meets and elopes with the beautiful girl puppet, Julietta, leaving Geppetto alone and worried.

A knight returns home from the Crusades to find his village devastated by disease and his family gone. He roams the forest searching for them, until he finds a mysterious maiden who is being held prisoner by a black knight. In order to free her, he must confront her captor.

A TV adaptation of Washington Irving's classic ghost story. Humor is the drawing card in this version, with Jeff Goldblum a nerdish Ichabod Crane, Dick Butkus an appropriately nasty Brom Bones, and Meg Foster as spirited Katrina van Tassel. Angered that Katrina has grown fond of schoolmaster Crane, Brom Bones determines to scare off the interloper by filling his head with spooky tales of a Headless Horseman. Crane pooh-poohs the legends, until one fateful ride home in the dark of night.

God appears before 11-year-old Tracy Richards to ask for her help to spread his word and influence over the world which she suggests the slogan 'Think God.' Naturaly, Tracy's divorced parents think Tracy's crazy, and plot to halt her 'heaven-sent' mission to spread God's word.

A small-time Chicago hood, now deceased, gets a second chance at life by striking a bargain with the Devil to inhabit and attempt to corrupt a totally honest politician.

Hawk the Slayer, after seeing both his father and bride die at the hands of his malevolent brother, Voltan, sets out for revenge and the chance to live up to his title. Tooling himself up with the "mind-sword" and recruiting a motley band of warriors: a giant, a dwarf, a one-armed man with a machine-crossbow and an elf with the fastest bow in the land; Hawk leads the battle against Voltan to free the land from the forces of evil and avenge his loved ones.

The 10-year-old Hubert Finn, known as "Fatty", lived in poor conditions in Australia in the 1930s. He and his friends stick together as they often have to defend themselves against the villain Bomer and his gang. Fatty wants a detector radio, but can't afford it. He has to raise money for it within a week, otherwise he won't get the radio ...

Shortly after the Civil War, while exploring the long deserted and reputedly haunted Sullivan's Island off Charleston S.C., a boy encounters two obsessed eccentrics living there. These men chase him away and warn him never to return or to tell anyone about them. Soon, however, they locate him and summon him back, because he has unknowingly given them a clue vital to their quest and they need his help to unravel the rest of the mystery. If he can do so, they will find buried pirate treasure and all become rich. But in joining the search, he falls under the same obsession and curse -- an ominous fate suggested by the unearthly electronic music which contributes to the film's atmosphere.

Animation, also of a new order in the recent series of short works. Mostly on black space, the figures in blue perform a very compact and jewel-like opera in surreal form, again to Satie’s piano music. Ideally, the film should be projected on a 30" wide white card sitting on a music stand, center stage of a large auditorium or music hall, with sound from the projector piped into the big speaker system. The film is most effective this way, but can be shown normal-size also

Dorothy is carried back to Oz by a green turkey balloon on the final Thanksgiving she is to spend with her aunt and uncle, who are moving to a retirement community. She meets Jack Pumpkinhead, The Hungry Tiger, and Tic Toc (sic), and must stop the evil Tyrone the Terrible Toy Tinkerer (looking suspiciously like John R. Neil's depiction of the Nome King), who brings the balloon to life.

Ghosts and a young cadet try to save a military academy from being closed.

In the glitzy, glittering futuristic world of 1994, music is king -- and the man who controls it is all-powerful malicious mogul Mr. Boogalow. Now he has his eye on two fresh-faced young singers, Alphie and Bibi, who score a hit at his WorldVision Song Festival and fall under the irresistible spell of fame, money, and temptation.

A group of racquetball-playing married women indulge in sexual fantasies; so do their frustrated husbands.

Tanya is a female model who lives with her boyfriend Lobo, a surrealist painter who is extremely violent. Subjected to Lobo's constant abuse, Tanya dreams of escaping to a desert island, which comes true. The only other being on her island is an enormous blue-eyed man-ape who was born from one of Lobo's paintings.

Welcome to Strawberry Land, the charming and peaceful home of Strawberry Shortcake and her fruit-filled friends, where rivers of strawberry juice flow past homes made of pastry! But all is not well in this picturesque paradise. The presence of the Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak and his beastly Berry Birds threatens their tranquil existence.

An ugly, misshapen podiatrist ingests a formula made by a colleague and turns into a handsome, devil-may-care (but violent) ladies' man.

Based on the children's fantasy novel set in Australia, written by Patricia Wrightson. The story involves an orphaned city boy named Simon Brent who comes to live on a 5000-acre sheep station called Wongadilla, in the Hunter Region, with his mother's second cousins, Edie and Charlie. In a remote valley on the property he discovers a variety of ancient Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime creatures. The arrival of heavy machinery intent on clearing the land brings to life the ominous stone Nargun. The Nargun is a creature drawn from tribal legends of the Gunai or Kurnai people of the area now known as the Mitchell River National Park in Victoria. Other creatures featured in the story include the mischievous green-scaled water-spirit Potkoorok, the Turongs (tree people) and the Nyols (cave people).

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's--Super Christian? Clark Kant is a mild-mannered Christian teenager with a super secret. Through light-hearted humor, the Super Christian series sets out to teach us something about Christian growth. In the first installment [sic] of Super Christian, we find that Clark Kant lives in two different worlds. During the week, Clark follows the standards of the world. "Why not?" he asks himself. "Isn't everybody doing it?" But on Sunday, in his Super Christian Best, Clark presents quite a different image. Then Clark learns through a friend that the Christian faith is for every day of the week, not just for Sundays. (from: gospelcommunications.org)

An adaptation of the novel by Penelope Lively. The plot revolves around the ghosts of plague victims in a sleepy wood.

In this interplanetary baseball story, a group of friends are playing a sandlot game on Earth that is noticed by Irwin, an outer space promoter of baseball. The haphazard team consists of an eagle, a beaver, a bear, a kangaroo, and a mole. Irwin invites the Earth team to play against the Outer Space All-Stars, an awesome team that has never lost a game, of that matter, been scrored upon. Their secret: they are the biggest cheaters in the universe.

Edwyn sees the number nine everywhere and is convinced that forces of evil are at work.

A group of hedonists capture a television star while she is out jogging, and have their way with her in (among other places) a chicken coop.

Janis Paige presides over the proceedings at a posh resort, using magical powers to help eight attractive, amiable vacationers discover one another, aided by her nephew and niece in this unsold pilot variation of "Fantasy Island."

Ultraman 80, disguised as mild-mannered schoolteacher Takeshi Yamato, defends the Earth from ferocious giant monsters, which are the result of negative energy from human anger.

Sulka and her friends Nikko, Loni, and Greg find themselves in the most erotic, scorching, and pounding four-way.

Michael Horden narrates as the voice of as Rolls Royce Phantom taking in the sights of Cheshire.

Hypnotist, Joe Keaton, regresses a modern day nurse back beyond her birth to the life of an 18th century maid, Kitty. To this day flowers are left daily on the unconsecrated grave of Kitty. Part of the BBC Leap in the Dark anthology series.