If you’re an avid Dungeons & Dragons player, you see the hints of D&D-like storytelling in any ensemble action and/or adventure and/or comedy movie. It doesn’t have to be based on an actual campaign for a well-balanced ensemble story with significance shared by the characters to feel like it’s based on a part of a D&D campaign or one-shot.
Many fantasy movies with the best action scenes, sci-fi movies with incredible ensemble casts, and martial arts adventure movies fall into this category of films that feel like Dungeons & Dragons. However, not every ensemble movie with some comedy, group fights, and an ever-evolving dynamic feels similar to Dungeons & Dragons, as a sense of adventure or a quest is also essential.
A ragtag group of characters join hands to work together towards a common goal, often in a world filled with magic that presents regular obstructions to their shared aim, leading to unexpectedly goofy shenanigans, moments of pure heroism, and an arduous journey to fulfillment. This simplified blueprint of a Dungeons & Dragons game helps determine which movies qualify.
Krull (1983)
Watching Krull as a D&D player feels like watching the first test run of a campaign idea. While it’s scrappy and a lot of its visual effects haven’t aged well, it’s a classic comedy adventure where a prince, played by Ken Marshall, sets out to rescue his bride, who has been kidnapped and trapped in a fortress by alien invaders.
Krull features one of Liam Neeson’s earliest movie roles as a minor character.
Krull is set on the fictional titular planet of Krull, whose design is reminiscent of the world-building in some of the most underappreciated vintage sci-fi TV shows of the 1990s and 2000s. The premise is like a classic D&D adventure – the prince gathers a fellowship of friends to go find an artifact that will help them free his bride.
The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy (2005 – 2010)
Going on elaborate adventures as the king, queen, prince, and princess of a magical land created by a majestic lion while still having a normal life in the regular world seems idyllic. The magic wardrobe and the land of Narnia provide the perfect setting for D&D-like adventures, as there’s no element of fantasy missing in C.S. Lewis’ vastly imaginative world.
While The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is a bona fide fantasy movie classic that’ll make you love the genre, Prince Caspian is the one that feels more like D&D, because the four protagonists are established and have to help out in a war. The group fights, the strategizing, the teasing, and the misadventures are typical of D&D groups.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Karen Gillan’s dance fighting and Dwayne Johnson’s smoldering intensity in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle feel like the kind of D&D abilities you’d play around with. You have a group of people with new abilities they’ve never used before, each manifesting in the form of visible stats, and contributing towards the group’s efforts as a whole on an epic quest.
While the next movie maintains the group’s dynamic, as one of the better Jumanji movie sequels, Welcome to the Jungle is the film that feels most like D&D. Since it mimics the elements of role-playing games in general, it fits the mold better than the other films in the franchise, and the comedy is exactly like typical D&D game humor.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Right from the opening scene, you know you’re watching a legendary fantasy movie when you start watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Being a parody of the classic fantasy adventure genre, its humor is perhaps the most similar to an actual D&D game, since it’s filled with wordplay, silly gags, witty one-liners, poorly shielded innuendos, and unintentionally hilarious moments.
Since it’s based on the roll of die, D&D inadvertently leads to inexplicable epic fails and “unrealistic” epic successes, and this chaos is well captured by the silliness of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The best part is it feels like an actual game because a comedy troupe is committing to bits in what feels like an extended skit.
Big Hero 6 (2014)
While we typically think of fantasy lands with some form of medeival social order, whenever we think of a D&D setting, if you’ve ever dreamed of playing D&D in a hypermodern, even futuristic land where you and your friends get to be superheroes, Big Hero 6 is the movie for you, because it features the D&D dynamic in San Fransokyo.
Big Hero 6, Disney’s most underrated animated movie, is the perfect D&D movie because it features a heartbreaking backstory, hilarious dialogue, unique character quirks, cool costume designs, unbelievably good team fight sequences, goof-ups that are reminiscent of poor dice rolls in D&D, individualized technological powers, and a proper villain that they have to beat at the end of the day.
The Mythica Franchise (2014 – 2024)
With six movies spanning a decade, the first Mythica movie’s tagline is perhaps the biggest appealing factor for D&D fans. It reads “A Quest for Heroes.” These dIrect-to-video movies, often funded by Kickstarter campaigns, are the ultimate passion projects in fantasy storytelling, because their narrative style is similar to the kinds of stories that tabletop role-playing games are based on.
For fans of D&D especially, and specifically fans of Critical Role, there’s also an Easter egg to look out for in Mythica. Matthew Mercer stars in multiple movies in the franchise. The movies can be forgettable, but their lore has developed over the years, and the franchise might be worth investing in if you really want a D&D campaign-like story.
Willow (1988)
As a perfect non-animated action movie to watch with kids, Willow is also the perfect D&D movie. It literally has the typical classic structure of a D&D game. A prophesied princess needs to be protected by a sorcerer who works as a farmer, and a knight he meets along the way, as they try to safely take her back home.
The titular Willow, played by Warwick Davis, and the Knight, Madmartigan, played by Val Kilmer, are a fun duo with their own personal arcs of character development that are triggered by their epic quest. With fantastic creatures to fight, an evil queen, and a distant destination, Willow is practically as good as fantasy adventures and D&D one shot-like stories get.
The Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy (2014 – 2023)
Among Dave Bautista’s best action movies are the three Guardians of the Galaxy movies, where he plays Drax the Destroyer, an unsmiling assassin with a heart of stone who gradually softens up and even becomes the comic relief character by the end of thr trilogy. He’s joined by Star Lord, Gamora, Groot, Rocket, Mantis, and Nebula to form the Guardians.
The titular Guardians of the Galaxy is the best example of a D&D group. They often don’t get along, they’re all quirky, they have very different skill sets, they can fight well as a group, they didn’t know each other before the first movie began, and their group has grown over time. This trilogy should be turned into a campaign.
The Princess Bride (1987)
Rob Reiner’s name is bound to come up in a D&D discussion, because not only has he proven he can handle ensemble casts very well in Stand By Me, A Few Good Men, and The Princess Bride, but he’s also made one of the most timeless and iconic fantasy adventure movies of all time in the last of those three.
A fairy tale of epic proportions, The Princess Bride, which is one of the best feel-good movies of the 1980s, has the perfect story structure to turn into a D&D campaign. Two lovers must fight all odds to be together, and they’re joined by friends who help them fight all sorts of evil on their journey to celebrate their love.
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001 – 2003)
The greatest fantasy story ever, The Lord of the Rings, is often said to have laid the foundation for fantasy storytelling as a literary genre. J.R.R. Tolkien’s world has informed the worldbuilding of millions of fantasy stories since its publication. It has thus naturally also informed elements of D&D as a role-playing game that has roots in the fantasy genre.
The Lord of the Rings, alongside The Godfather, is the only trilogy in which every movie has been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
A fellowship is formed to help Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) travel to the land of Mordor and drop the infernal ring into the fire. Each member of the group can easily be associated with one of the classes in D&D, and the epic scale of their adventure spanning the trilogy is exactly what a long-running campaign often amounts to.
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