Best Fairy Tale Movies for Adults (2023)

Fairy tales have always been dark material. While most of us probably grew up with Disney's wondrous, family-friendly animated adaptations, the lore behind them is usually far from happily ever after. Like the blood in Cinderella's shoe or the baby in Princess Talia’s belly, there was always a throughline of the darkest elements of human nature amidst the enchantment and adventure.

While the naughtier bits of the original stories were naturally scrubbed for Disney’s family-friendly princess catalogue, there are surprisingly few movies out there that embrace the dark nature of fairy tale origins. The decent ones are even fewer, but I’ve rounded up some solid picks for an adults-only trip to fantasy land. Check them out below.

Freeway

Of all the films on the list, keep the kids far, far away from Freeway. A hard-R exploitation slant on ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, Freeway star Reese Witherspoon as Vanessa Lutz, a wild, willful and oh so foul-mouthed high schooler, who's always decked out in red attire. An underprivileged city kid, Vanessa goes on the run when her cracked out mother and lecherous stepfather are arrested for solicitation and possession. Determined not to head back into foster care, Vanessa hits the road to find her long lost grandmother and start a new life, until her car stalls on the side of the freeway and she meets the not-at-all-subtly named Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), a serial killer and necrophile who is the big bad wolf to Vanessa's Little Red. Pretending to be a soft-hearted youth counselor, Bob gets off on extracting Vanessa’s dark secrets and perverse memories of abuse, but Vanessa, in her immortal words, "ain't no trick baby" and figures him out for the predator he really is faster than you can say, “What big teeth you have.”

There's no Huntsman in Freeway; Vanessa is very much her own savior, and once she turns the tables on Bob, the film spins off into even crazier directions, defying expectation at every turn. A quick trip to the penitentiary and one sexually (and morally) ambiguous prison friendship later, the film finally arrives at her Grandmother's House where Vanessa squares off against Wolverton one last time. It's a wildly perverse slant on the iconic sequence (seriously, keep those kids far away), indicative of the film as a whole. Which is to say, it's all batshit crazy and occasionally vile, but it's “Once Upon a Time” like you've never seen before.

Snow White: A Tale of Terror

Originally aired as a cable teleplay, Snow White: A Tale of Terror is somewhat of a tonal mishmash at times, but is redeemed by a revisionist slant on the wicked queen that manages to humanize her without softening her edges. Both the script and Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of the iconic fairy tale villain eschew the traditional portrait of the character, opting instead for something more relatable instead. As ever, the queen is vain and murderous, but unlike her traditional counterparts, she's a sympathetic woman, attempting to be a good mother figure to Monica Keena's Snow White (or Lilli, as she's called in the film), only to face rejection and disrespect at every turn. While a mysterious darkness follows her, brought about by her enchanted mirror (and super squicky relationship with her brother), Queen Claudia is kind and patient until a traumatic stillbirth awakens the wickedness within her.

From that point on, the movie takes a decided turn into adults-only territory. Claudia doesn't just demand Lilli's organs; she tries to feed them to the king. Lilli doesn't end up sharing a hut in the forest with a bunch of domestic dwarves, but in the midst of a ragtag group of miners, one of whom gets real rapey. Fortunately, the mysterious and strapping leader Will (Gil Bellows) intervenes, and subs for Prince Charming in the process. As Claudia's attempts to murder Snow with magic repeatedly fail, the queen succumbs more and more to her madness, and yet, perhaps one of the most unnerving elements of A Tale of Terror is the fact that you often find yourself rooting for her. It's a refreshing inversion on the oft-told tale. A throwback to the story's Grimm roots, Snow White: A Tale of Terror has all the cannibalism and crucifixion you never knew you wanted in a fairy tale, but it also has an extra dose of humanity.

The Company of Wolves

Neil Jordan (Interview with a Vampire) is a filmmaker with a gift for the weird and the wondrous, a gift that surfaced early in his career with only his second film, The Company of Wolves. A revisionist fairy tale aimed at exploring the act of storytelling itself (mainly, the act of controlling female sexuality through portentous parables), The Company of Wolves dives deep into the erotic undertones of the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ myth. The film follows Sarah Patterson's Rosaleen, a modern teen who dreams she's living in a 17th-century village, where bloodthirsty wolves trawl through the forest. Rosaleen's grandmother (Angela Lansbury) fills her head with tales of werewolves, jealousy, and sexual menace. "They're nice as pie until they've had their way with you," she says, "but once the bloom is gone, the beast comes out."

The film earns it's R-rating easily, with ever-present themes of sexuality and a graphic werewolf transformation that begins (yeah, begins) with a man ripping the flesh off his face. But it's not the violent spin on fairy tale lore that makes The Company of Wolves a compelling adaptation of the classic tale, but the meta-commentary on how these tales, and society at large, teach women to see themselves and what they teach women to fear. The peculiar, erotic finale sequence, which finally reenacts the real ‘Red Riding Hood’ myth and finds Rosaleen in a dance of seduction and shifting power dynamics with a handsome wolf, subverts the classic ending by granting her the autonomy to take out the threat single-handedly. The film states its case plainly: "If there's a beast in man, it meets its match in women." Rosaleen emerges in control. Women are not victims of sexuality, but equal and worthy participants.

Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky first tried his hand at adult fairytales with The Fountain, his gorgeous but challenging 2006 tale of love, metaphysics, and biblical allegory, but he got it just right in 2010 with Black Swan. The director's twist on 'Swan Lake' is a frenzied psychological thriller centered on Natalie Portman's Nina Sayers, a prima ballerina who lands the role of The Swan Queen in a production of Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake'. A dainty and deeply repressed woman, Nina is perfect for the purity and precision of the White Swan, but her demanding and demeaning director Thomas doubts she can capture the ferocious seduction of the Black Swan. Stifled by her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey) at home, pitted against the vivacious Lily (Mila Kunis) in the studio, and awash in a surge of pent-up sexuality pretty much everywhere, Nina's pursuit of perfection drives her into madness, and Aronofsky drags the audience along with her.

As Nina falls further down the rabbit hole of her mind, Aronofsky develops a pitch perfect atmosphere defined by the slippery logic of nightmares. Reality breaks and bends around her, her psychological fractures manifesting in hallucinations, paranoia, and a psychosomatic physical transformation that finds her physically becoming the Black Swan. Heightened by tremendous performances all around and dazzling cinematic craftsmanship from Aronofsky, Black Swan is a deranged spin on an already dark tale, supplanting madness for magic and artistic ambition for true love.

Pan's Labyrinth

Guillermo del Toro's crowning achievement as a director is also the standard-bearer for adult fairytales. An original tale, del Toro's fantastical Spanish-language feature offers a refreshing break from the Western European influence that dominates the genre, following the young Ofelia (Ivanna Baquero) as she tries to navigate the political and personal turmoil of 1944 Spain. Trapped under the thumb of her wicked stepfather (a lovely piece of subversion), Vidal (Sergi Lopez), a sadistic high-ranking army officer bent on destroying the rebel uprising, Ofelia uncovers a world of magic when she discovers an ancient labyrinth and the mythical faun Pan. There, Ofelia learns that she is a long lost princess of legend and that she must complete three dangerous tasks to prove she hasn’t become mortal, return to her realm, and reclaim her throne.

Intertwining the real-life horrors of war with Ofelia's enchanting gothic wonderland, Pan's Labyrinth is visually resplendent with stunning creature effects, cinematography, and del Toro's signature eye for rich, detailed production design. The creature creations are otherworldly, but feel organic and always a little frightening (or in the cast of the Pale Man, the fleshy fairy-chomping monster with eyes in his hands, completely and utterly terrifying). The extraordinary Doug Jones embodies both Pan and the Pale Man, giving them distinct character and physicality, and the creatures of del Toro’s world are surrounded by a wealth of well-crafted imagery, invoking the magical and the mundane as needed to balance the story’s two realms.

Narratively, it's equally impressive for the thread of earnest sentiment that runs through Ofelia's journey. Each character is treated with dignity, from Ofelia's ailing mother (Ariadna Gil), to the pair of rebels that have infiltrated Vidal's home -- the courageous Mercedes (Maribel Verdu) and the quietly noble Doctor Ferrio (Alex Angulo) -- and, Ofelia herself, who is tenacious and brave, but ultimately also a child thrust into the midst of two momentous narratives. Even the villainous Vidal, who is uncompromising, selfish and cruel -- a ferocious embodiment of fascism's rigidity and toxic masculinity -- is endowed with humanity, a fact that makes his warped worldview all the more horrifying. A singular vision, Pan's Labyrinth is the rare treat that delivers spellbinding magic and sobering glimpses at the human condition in equal measure.

(Video) Snow White - The Fairy Tales

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