Best Fantasy Movies of 2008

Hellboy must stop an elven prince from locating an ancient force that can destroy humanity: the all-powerful Golden Army.

One year after their incredible adventures in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan Pevensie return to Narnia to aid a young prince whose life has been threatened by the evil King Miraz. Now, with the help of a colorful cast of new characters, including Trufflehunter the badger and Nikabrik the dwarf, the Pevensie clan embarks on an incredible quest to ensure that Narnia is returned to its rightful heir.

One day, Horton the elephant hears a cry from help coming from a speck of dust. Even though he can't see anyone on the speck, he decides to help it. As it turns out, the speck of dust is home to the Whos, who live in their city of Whoville. Horton agrees to help protect the Whos and their home.

Hancock is a down-and-out superhero who's forced to employ a PR expert to help repair his image when the public grows weary of all the damage he's inflicted during his lifesaving heroics. The agent's idea of imprisoning the antihero to make the world miss him proves successful, but will Hancock stick to his new sense of purpose or slip back into old habits?

Journey into the secret world of Pixie Hollow and hear Tinker Bell speak for the very first time as the astonishing story of Disney's most famous fairy is finally revealed in the all-new motion picture "Tinker Bell."

Upon moving into the run-down Spiderwick Estate with their mother, twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, along with their sister Mallory, find themselves pulled into an alternate world full of faeries and other creatures.

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

For generations, the people of the City of Ember have flourished in an amazing world of glittering lights. But Ember's once powerful generator is failing and the great lamps that illuminate the city are starting to flicker. Now, two teenagers, in a race against time, must search Ember for clues that will unlock the ancient mystery of the city's existence, before the the lights go out forever.

During the reign of the Vikings, a man from another world crash-lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator. The man must fuse his advanced technology with the weaponry of the vikings to fight the monster.

The adventures of a father and his young daughter, in their search for a long lost book that will help reunite a missing, close relative.

David Rice is a man who knows no boundaries, a Jumper, born with the uncanny ability to teleport instantly to anywhere on Earth. When he discovers others like himself, David is thrust into a dangerous and bloodthirsty war while being hunted by a sinister and determined group of zealots who have sworn to destroy all Jumpers. Now, David’s extraordinary gift may be his only hope for survival!

Skeeter Bronson is a down-on-his-luck guy who's always telling bedtime stories to his niece and nephew. But his life is turned upside down when the fantastical stories he makes up for entertainment inexplicably turn into reality. Can a bewildered Skeeter manage his own unruly fantasies now that the outrageous characters and situations from his mind have morphed into actual people and events?

An ex-cop and his family are the target of an evil force that is using mirrors as a gateway into their home.

Fresh off ripping space-time a new one at the end of "Bender's Big Score," the Planet Express crew is back to mend the tear in reality, or (hopefully) at least not make it worse. Beyond the tear, though, lurks a being of inconceivable...tentacularity. What will become of Earth, and indeed, our universe, when faced with the Beast with a Billion Backs?

When Bella Swan moves to a small town in the Pacific Northwest, she falls in love with Edward Cullen, a mysterious classmate who reveals himself to be a 108-year-old vampire. Despite Edward's repeated cautions, Bella can't stay away from him, a fatal move that endangers her own life.

Bertram Pincus, a cranky Manhattan dentist, develops the unwelcome ability to see dead people. Really annoying dead people. But, when a smooth-talking ghost traps Bertram into a romantic scheme involving his widow Gwen, they are entangled in a hilarious predicament between the now and the hereafter!

A television reporter and her cameraman are trapped inside a building quarantined by the CDC after the outbreak of a mysterious virus which turns humans into bloodthirsty killers.

Archaeologist Rick O'Connell travels to China, pitting him against an emperor from the 2,000-year-old Han dynasty who's returned from the dead to pursue a quest for world domination. This time, O'Connell enlists the help of his wife and son to quash the so-called 'Dragon Emperor' and his abuse of supernatural power.

When 13 year old Maria Merryweather's father dies, leaving her orphaned and homeless, she is forced to leave her luxurious London life to go and live with Sir Benjamin, an eccentric uncle she didn't know she had, at the mysterious Moonacre Manor.

While on a dangerous mission to recover the historic Judas Chalice, Flynn is saved by Simone. But when double-crossed by a respected professor and ambushed by a ruthless gang, Flynn realizes Simone's secret, his true mission and a shocking discovery are all lying within a decaying New Orleans crypt.

A prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe.

A photographer's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer who stalks late night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways.

A mysterious woman comes in to town and inhabits the local haunted mansion, making everyone wonder if she's a witch or "The Grey Lady".

Scooby-Doo and Shaggy must go into the underworld ruled by The Goblin King in order to stop a mortal named The Amazing Krudsky who wants power and is a threat to their pals, Fred, Velma and Daphne.

A cliché hunchbacked evil scientist's assistant aspires to become a scientist himself, much to the displeasure of the rest of the evil science community.

18th century justice catches up with a pair of grave robbers. With only a few hours to go before his date with the guillotine, Arthur Blake tells his life story to Father Francis Duffy. Before long, Arthur spills the beans on how he got started in the grim corpse peddling business with seasoned ghoul Willie Grimes.

Set between the parallel worlds of contemporary London and the futuristic faith dominated metropolis of Meanwhile City, Franklyn weaves a tale of four souls, whose lives are intertwined by fate, romance and tragedy. As these worlds collide, a single bullet determines the destiny of these four characters.

A group of young film students run into real-life zombies while filming a horror movie of their own.

Elina, heroine of the Fairytopia films tells her friend Bibble the story of Flutterfield, a faraway kingdom populated by fairies with butterfly wings. Henna, the evil butterfly fairy has poisoned the queen of Flutterfield in an attempt to take over the kingdom.

When high school misfits Rickie and JT decide to ditch school and find themselves lost in the crumbling facility of a nearby abandoned hospital, they come face-to-face with a gruesome discovery: a body of a woman stripped naked, chained to a table and covered in plastic and soon realize she is anything but dead. Quickly the boys find themselves embarking on a twisted yet poignant journey testing the limits of their friendship, and forces both to decide just how far they're willing to stretch their understanding of right and wrong.

Utilizing the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw, the epic Indian tale of exiled prince Ramayana and his bride Sita is mirrored by a spurned woman's contemporary personal life, and light-hearted but knowledgeable discussion of historical background by a trio of Indian shadow puppets.

The Discworld—a magical realm quite unlike, yet hauntingly familiar to, ours—has got its first tourist Twoflower. Rincewind, an inept ex-student wizard, is given the task of guiding Twoflower through the city state of Ankh-Morpork. Rincewind has two problems: firstly, as an expert coward, he doesn't feel he's the best person to guard a naive—and by local standards extremely rich—tourist through one of the roughest cities in the multiverse. And secondly, the world is coming to an end. Never rains, eh?

Amanda, an ardent Jane Austen fan, lives in present day London with her boyfriend Michael, until she finds she's swapped places with Austen's fictional creation Elizabeth Bennett.

All Lodge wants is for his gaming group to finish their adventure. Unfortunately, they're more interested in seducing barmaids, mooning their enemies, and setting random villagers on fire. Desperate to rein in his players, Lodge injects two newbies into the party: a non-player character controlled by Lodge, who the power gamers immediately distrust, and the rarest gamer of all -- a girl.

Stop motion movie showing the cooking of spaghetti using everyday objects instead of food.

If you had a love-potion, who would you make fall madly in love with you? Timothy, prone to escaping his dismal high school reality through dazzling musical daydreams, gets to answer that question in a very real way. After his eccentric teacher casts him as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he stumbles upon a recipe hidden within the script to create the play's magical, purple love-pansy.

Angel, a selfish rotter is hanging around in a local bar, groping the wife of the barman and dealing with weapons. One morning he wakes up finding a pair of wings growing at his back. These wings do good deeds against his nature. But suddenly he finds himself fighting those who want these wings for their own dark plans.

As Rincewind involuntarily becomes a guide to the naive tourist Twoflower, they find themselves forced to flee the city of Ankh-Morpork to escape a terrible fire, and begin on a journey across the Disc. Unknown to them, their journey & fate is being decided by the Gods playing a board game the whole time.

The year 2230. The planet is in danger and only the hot body of Leelo (Aletta Ocean) can save it from destruction: she is the “SEXth Element”.

Pen and Jake have to rescue Princess Bubblegum from the antagonistic Ice King.

Granny O'Grimm, a seemingly sweet old lady, loses the plot as she tells her version of Sleeping Beauty to her terrified granddaughter.

Maya Dolittle is back in a heartwarming adventure of presidential proportions! Maya's dream of going to vet school is put on hold when she gets a call from the president of the United States. It seems the First Dog is out of control, and the president needs Maya's help. It's up to Maya and her own dog, Lucky, to stop a canine catastrophe from becoming a national crisis!

Irwin, Hoss Delgado, Jeff the Spider, Fred Fredburger, and General Skarr from the "Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" team up to fight an evil candy army from the Underworld on Halloween.

Three young people check into the Meadow View Inn for a night's rest, fully unaware of the inn's sick-minded employees and their nefarious intentions.

Bathory is based on the legends surrounding the life and deeds of Countess Elizabeth Bathory known as the greatest murderess in the history of mankind. Contrary to popular belief, Elizabeth Bathory was a modern Renaissance woman who ultimately fell victim to men’s aspirations for power and wealth.

Shattered by the loss of her child, Nyla Jayde, a brilliant criminal defense attorney, takes on a case involving a 14th century Moroccan legend, a vengeful spirit named Kandisha.

'Angel' (Jessica Drake) is a fallen Gregorian Angel who has been banished to earth and stripped of her wings after the accidental death of the young woman she was sent to watch over. Alone and desperate for companionship, she finds it in the city's seedy underworld, far from the idyllic heavens she once knew.

Short motion-comic prologue to Hellboy II: The Golden Army. In 1955, Hellboy's caretaker, professor Broom, tells young Hellboy the tale of an indestructible mechanical army created to end the war between humans and magical races.

A woman drifts back to childhood memories of rural Texas where her discovery of the jawbone of a horse in a field leads to a fascination with, in her own words, "dead things." Her natural history collection of insects and bones takes on a supernatural quality when she finds the corpse of a strange creature that she believes must be a faery. Using still photographs, found objects and unsettling creations that briefly come to life via stop-motion animation (which evokes the work of the Brothers Quay and gives them an even more unreal presence), filmmaker David Lowery tells a phantasmagorical story, part fantastical mystery and part nightmare, as a primal memory. A CATALOG OF ANTICIPATIONS weaves imagination and experience into a haunting tale recalled in snapshots of recollection, a dark fantasy with a tactile texture that grounds it in the physical world and narration that frames it as a coming-of-age moment. - Sean Axmaker