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Letterboxd Showdown: Grand Illusion

The sixteenth-annual TCM Classic Film Festival just kicked off in Hollywood, and this year’s theme is “Grand Illusions: Fantastic Worlds on Film”. For this week’s Showdown, create a list of your ten favorite sci-fi and/or fantasy films released a long time ago in a galaxy not-so far away—i.e. during or before 1980, the debut year of TCM Fest’s opening-night film, The Empire Strikes Back. Harken back to a land that time forgot, where effects were practical, green screens weren’t yet popularized and dancing penguins were hand-drawn rather than CGI… But hey, some things never change: King Kong and Godzilla were still goin’ at it.

Read notes

There are 11 adventure films in this list.

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey

    1

  • The Empire Strikes Back

    4

  • Star Wars

    5

  • The Wizard of Oz

    6

  • Planet of the Apes

    10

  • The Thief of Bagdad

    14

  • King Kong

    16

  • Superman

    22

  • Monty Python and the Holy Grail

    23

  • Forbidden Planet

    24

  • The Thief of Bagdad

    25