Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

* The Fellowship of the Ring is pretty much my favorite for providing a more urgent, compelling pacing and more appealing characterization than the book - throw in awesome visuals.

* there's a batch of wuxia and jidaigeki which I'd consider really good, and even if the trappings aren't quasi-Tolkien-quasi-Europe D&D, they're definitely D&D thematically (f'rex Sanjuro, Throne of Blood, Iron Monkey, House of Flying Daggers).

Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

* The Book of the Dead. This isn't technically a fantasy film but it has so many cool elements.

* Conan the Barbarian, The Thirteenth Warrior, Alexander Nevsky, Henry V, what I've seen of the Kung Fu Panda series; these all have really appealing D&Dish elements; raids, dungeon crawls, underground prisons, brutish guards, huge battles, evil armies. And, by and large they're fairly good quality as movies go.

Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

* the remaining two Peter Jackson LotR films; good, but they don't blow me away like the first one.

* good movies with fantasy elements but which have a fairly different genre to them - like Aliens, The African Queen, Flushed Away, The Secret of NIMH, Hellboy, the Indiana Jones films.

* Excalibur, Van Helsing, Underworld, Hellboy II. These aren't great movies or completely D&Dish, but they have fun bits - actively brilliant in places.

Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

* The Peter Jackson Hobbit films. There's some good stuff there, but largely they're just kinda eh. They're definitely Things You Watch Because They're The Most Palatable Thing On TV in the Motel.

* Krull, Beastmaster, Wizards, Master of the Flying Guillotine, Conan the Destroyer, Heavy Metal. These aren't good movies at all, but there's a certain joy to how bad they are that keeps you coming back.

Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

* Fire and Ice, any Beastmaster sequel. We're scraping the bottom here. This is "starved for escapism" or "morbidly curious" territory.

argh, I somehow forgot to rate Dragonheart (middle-low on the scale), Dark Crystal or the Rankin-Bass Hobbit (fairly high up there) and Labyrinth (about exact middle). And I'm sure I'm forgetting more examples!

Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

@Leucrotta Felthry wants to ask you where you'd put Going Postal (the movie of the Terry Pratchett novel) on the ranking.

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Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

@Rosemary I haven't seen it and, possibly more embarrassing, I haven't read the book!

Randomly rating fantasy-ish movies for tabletop nerds; 

@Leucrotta Ah, you should definitely read the book at least!

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