10 Movies So Good They Ruined Genres
1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Considering how popular and beloved fantasy books are, it's surprising how few genuinely unique and original fantasy film franchises actually exist.
Then we remember that The Lord of the Rings did pretty much everything a fantasy movie could do: it delivered an epic, emotionally resonant three-movie saga culminating in its Best Picture Oscar victory for the climactic The Return of the King.
In both mainstream books and movies, the fantasy genre tends to pull from a pretty narrow assemblage of tropes, and given the legendary stature of J.R.R. Tolkein's source material, it's not terribly surprising that the vast majority of modern fantasy films are heavily indebted to his work.
The result, then, is that practically every "hard-fantasy" movie released since 2003 has felt like an inferior rehash of LOTR, recycling the same fundamental ideas albeit without Peter Jackson's passion or the rich detail of Tolkein's writing.
When the world has something as inscrutable as these movies - which are arguably even better when viewed in their extended form - can anything else really compete?
As such, the genre's most recent success has instead been found in the world of TV, with Game of Thrones of course becoming the successor to LOTR's claim of pop-culture fantasy phenom.
Did these classic movies ruin genres for you? Got any other suggestions? Shout them out in the comments!