In recent years, mainly since the success of The Lord of the Rings, fantasy movies have dominated the box office with the likes of Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Golden Compass all finding their way into cinemas.

Studios have found that these movies have proved lucrative at the box office and authors like C.S Lewis and Phillip Pullman have had their most famous and popular works adapted for the silver screen.

However the boundaries of this genre are not well defined and genres science fiction and horror can sometimes over lap. But in the past fantasy has not been as highly regarded as those other genres it sometimes mixes with.

But all that has changed when The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King became the first fantasy film to be awarded the Best Picture Oscar and since then the fantasy film has become a major commercial success.

Peter Jackson’s 2001 movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring proved, to many who had doubted the production, that these fantasy novels could be brought to the big screen and be a major success.

For three consecutive Christmases movie go-ers were transported to Middle Earth as the movies became one of the most successful franchises of all time, Return of the King grossed over $1.1 billion alone and took eleven Academy Awards.

But in 2007 J.K Rowling's boy wizard Harry Potter became the top grossing franchise of all time with earnings reaching $4.47 billion worldwide.

However the success of Narnia, Potter and Rings was not to continue as the film was savaged by the critics and grossed just under $30 million. More criticism followed when Phillip Pullman's The Golden Compass was the big 2007 Christmas movie starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman.

Despite grossing in excess of $370 million at the global box office this was way down on what was expected for the film and was met with only a lukewarm reception from the critics.

While this genre has had success in the twenty first century fantasy film began back in the silent era of film with Douglas Fairbanks’ 1924 swashbuckling adventure The Thief of Baghdad being one of the most famous.

But fantasy films were very few and far between until the sixties and seventies with the likes of Jason and the Argonauts, which is famous for it’s stop-motion animation work, and One Million Years B.C., which made Raquel Welch a star.

But from the eighties this genre of film became much more popular and since the turn of the century the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean, Pan’s Labyrinth and Russian effort Daywatch/Nightwatch have all found success.

Despite the major criticism of The Golden Compass at Christmas this hasn't put off film studios releasing the fantasy adaptation as The Spiderwick Chronicles enjoyed surprise success earlier this year and with The Hobbit, Inkheart and The Mutant Chronicles still in the pipeline this is a genre that appears to have serious legs as well as finding a loyal audience.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw