50 Best Georges Méliès Movies, Ranked
Note: “The Ranks of the Auteurs” is a written series that traces notable people, studios, and series throughout film history and ranks their work. This is the fifth installment, featuring Georges Méliès, who was born on December 8, 1861 in Paris, France and died there on January 21, 1938.
Before I get started here, I should mention that Georges Méliès made over 500 films, about 200 of which survive today. I’d say, conservatively, that I’ve seen 184 of them, 134 of which I’ve already briefly ranked here. In that “prelude,” I also gave a little bit of background on the pioneering French filmmaker who did much to advance narrative film and special effects while remaining grounded in his stage magic background, eventually to his detriment. I hope to provide some background on the arc of his career (which lasted from 1896 to 1913) while evaluating Méliès’ 50 best films. As I pointed out in my prelude, there’s quite a bit of hair-splitting that has to go on due to his entire short-based filmography and repetitive concepts. Nevertheless, towards the top (or I guess bottom) of this list are some of the most inventive movies of their day, ones that also entertain greatly today.
#50 — THE MAN WITH THE RUBBER HEAD (1901)
Along with actualities, proto-documentaries that showcased real-world events or presentations like vaudeville acts, trick films made up the primary genre of early film. Trick films relied on camera, well, tricks and special effects to present fantastical scenarios that could only happen on film. They are distinguished from any other film that contains special effects because they were extremely short (usually under 10 minutes, at the max) and didn’t really contain much of a narrative; or at least, a shoestring thin one. Much of Méliès’ filmography could be classified as trick films. Their principles would of course make their way into “epics” like A TRIP TO THE MOON, but this is all to say that THE MAN WITH THE RUBBER HEAD is a great example of a Méliès subgenre. Quite simply, he presents a trick like a stage magician. In this case, he takes his own head off and swells it and reduces it. It’s a simple trick, but a bizarre one. It’s still not boring to see Méliès interacting with a huge version of his own head, also because it’s essentially a close up at a time and from a filmmaker that didn’t have a lot of close ups.
#49 — AN EXTRAORDINARY DISLOCATION (1901)
I love this “cave” Méliès set (when you watch a lot of Méliès movies, you start to lump movies together into what backdrop they reused) and I love the use of the Pagliacci/Pierrot character, but AN EXTRAORDINARY DISLOCATION’s primary attachment (or lack thereof) is the moment when all the clown’s appendages swing around in the air. It’s an unnerving and impressive effect.
#48 — THE TERRIBLE TURKISH EXECUTIONER (1904)
Méliès’ orientalism can be a bit problematic, but THE TERRIBLE TURKISH EXECUTIONER is a frankly shocking bit of morbid humor. A row of four men are brought forth to the executioner, who is decked out with a wicked scimitar, and he quickly slices across all four necks, separating the men’s heads from them and dumping them into a barrel. The heads are passed around and put back onto the bodies, but then they also slice an innocent bystander in half! It’s a quick sequence of comic violence.
#47 — LONG DISTANCE WIRELESS PHOTOGRAPHY (1908)
Although it’s relatively “low” on this list (but not really in the grand scope of things), LONG DISTANCE WIRELESS PHOTOGRAPHY is one of Méliès’ most impressive films today. A lot of people find interest in its apparent foretelling of television, or even a kind of portrayal of video conferencing/Facetiming, like, 100 years before we had that technology. It essentially uses the same effect base as THE MAN WITH THE RUBBER HEAD, as Méliès was wont to do by 1908, but nevertheless, it’s an entertaining short with a ton of weird, huge faces mugging at the camera.
#46 — THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1897)
As with the next film on this list, THE HAUNTED CASTLE is one of the most impressive films of the first few years of Méliès’ career, an incredibly prolific period of time that resulted in a lot of very brief reenactments and magic acts. Many of them are lost today, but even still, there was already a sense of repetition, a main criticism of Méliès’ later career. THE HAUNTED CASTLE was essentially a color remake of 1896’s THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, and today, the deteriorated color is dreamlike, a perfect effect for the Victorian spookiness.
#45 — THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (1896)
But at three minutes long, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL was an epic in 1896. It’s a great example of Méliès’ tendency to innovate not only with camera techniques and effects, but also the very format and structure he would display them with. Somewhat liberally called the first horror film, THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL has more in common with the haunted house comedies of the Golden Age of Hollywood, but I love me a good skeleton-vampire-ghost trio encounter as much as anyone.
#44 — THE PILLAR OF FIRE (1899)
This might be a good time to mention that “format” also included things like color cinematography. Méliès wasn’t the only one to do this at the time, but a relatively impressive number of his color films survive. Now, these weren’t shot in color; color films at the time were hand-stenciled one-by-one. It took a lot of work, and Méliès worked with a whole lab of women run by Elisabeth Thuillier to get it done. THE PILLAR OF FIRE is a simple trick film with an eerie red overtone, a striking green devil, and a dancer in pure white garb emulating the “butterfly” and “serpentine” dances that were popular at the time. I love the flanking statues on the backdrop as well.
#43 — A FANTASTICAL MEAL (1900)
I don’t know, this is a pretty run-of-the-mill trick film from Méliès, but it’s elevated by a strange resonance in a few gags: the limbs in the pot, the squat little witch/ghost, and the spasmodic dummy thrown around the set.
#42 — THE RAJAH’S DREAM (1900)
Méliès made a number of “dream” films, and as with all of them, the 2 minute THE RAJAH’S DREAM doesn’t really get going until the action is in the dream. In a simple little woodland village set, the titular rajah encounters a beautiful little animated tree and a hilariously goofy…beastman?
#41 — ROBERT MACAIRE AND BERTRAND (1906)
The titular legendary bandit stock characters had been staged by Méliès before, and he used them to great effect in film as well. It almost has the scope of one of his “epics,” in spite of it only being ten minutes long, because the duo’s flight across the country uses up a lot of sets. The film is also notable because most of the sets are pretty straightforward, “realistic” fare, but once the criminals get to a bombed out village and fly across the sky, you get the fantastical Méliès payoff you expect.
#40 — A MIRACLE UNDER THE INQUISITION (1904)
Méliès’ dislike of organized religion is well-documented, so his film on the Inquisition, although long in the past, feels like a sharp poke at religious fanatics of the day. The “agents’” creepy masks are cool, as is the fire burning a dummy girl…I mean, effect-wise. But the angel woman gets her comeuppance, and burns the leader of the group while the two masked men flail about in confusion. It’s symbolic that an angel is the one who would punish those who would presume to punish others they saw as “blasphemous.”
#39 — THE DOCTOR AND THE MONKEY (1900)
I’ve actually written about THE DOCTOR AND THE MONKEY at length, but I’ll explain again here: my fascination with this film lies primarily in the silly monkey suit, a style of costuming popular on stage and in film at this time. The best way to describe it is that it feels kind of “school play-ish.”
#38 — THE HILARIOUS POSTERS (1906)
What would otherwise be a rote trick film showing paintings coming to a life is given striking visual acuity by the grid-like presentation of posters coming to life and interacting with each other. I don’t know how else to explain it, but the focus on the wall of posters makes it feel like we’re getting a glimpse into a set of different dimensions, a feeling rarely achieved with such force by Méliès.
#37 — THE DREAM OF AN OPIUM FIEND (1908)
Although the prelude to the drug-fueled bizareness of THE DREAM OF AN OPIUM FIEND has a bit of that pesky orientalism, a man’s encounter with otherworldly figures after he’s taken a hit or two is pretty funny. He is visited by a beautiful woman on a crescent moon, a favorite image of Méliès’ (and mine), who takes his massive beer and gives it to a man in the moon reminiscent, of course, of A TRIP TO THE MOON. But it’s the transformation of the woman into a…I don’t know, a little goblin? It’s that transformation that cements the film higher than the scores of bizarre films that make up this filmography.
#36 — THE SPIDER AND THE BUTTERFLY (1909)
I’ve also written about THE SPIDER AND THE BUTTERFLY before; what we have to watch today is actually a fragment, albeit a very entertaining, hand-colored fragment that is a symbol for the downturn of Méliès’ career. By 1909, he was in serious debt and his films were not nearly as popular as they once had been, due to changes in taste (for more realistic movies) and the increasing dominance of the American market. In spite of that, THE SPIDER AND THE BUTTERFLY is a beautiful, otherworldly capsule given new life by its pastel coloring.
#35 — FAUST AND MARGUERITE (1904)
Faust and the Devil were Méliès’ favorite subjects. What we have today of FAUST AND MARGUERITE is also a fragment, but it’s yet another entertaining ode to the satanic and diabolic. It’s a rousing adventure film for its day, and its final beautiful tableau of a chorus angels is its most striking image.
#34 — A GRANDMOTHER’S STORY (1908)
What is essentially another “dream” picture from Méliès is given a heartwarming bent rather than a manic one. A grandmother tells her sleeping granddaughter a story, resulting in a dream full of brilliantly realized “toy” soldiers, whimsical fairies, and sets that fittingly loom large over the little girl.
#33 — JUPITER’S THUNDERBALLS (1903)
JUPITER’S THUNDERBALLS’ opening, cloudy set is its strongest feature, but I was surprised with how entertaining Méliès’ Roman mythology film could be. Its dark cloud backdrop creates an expansive depth, something his best films would do. It truly feels like the events are taking place not only high above Earth, but also in some kind of parallel dimension.
#32 — THE MAGIC LANTERN (1903)
I always love clown stuff (really), and I love the Pagliacci/Pierrot character (I still can’t really tell them apart), and I love THE MAGIC LANTERN’s outsized set. Its characters look like little toys, which makes sense since they’re operating a huge magic lantern to look at circular images of a little romance. But then the box breaks open, revealing a horde of dancers and, eventually, a strange jack-in-the-box-esque man. Dude gives me the creeps.
#31 — ROBINSON CRUSOE (1902)
There exists a 12-minute hand-colored print of the original 15-minute ROBINSON CRUSOE film out there, but I’ve only been able to find one that runs about three minutes. Nevertheless, the film is one of Méliès’ best. Its impressive sets are among the filmmaker’s most three-dimensional, and although the print I’ve found is incredibly deteriorated, that still comes through. I want to watch the 4K restoration!
#30 — THE CHRISTMAS DREAM (1900)
Ah, another subject of a previous essay. Méliès’ Christmas films, like many Christmas films I suppose, impart a sense of relaxation and goodwill, if you’re into that sort of thing. But as I’ve pointed out before, THE CHRISTMAS DREAM isn’t without the director and performer’s trademark manic humor. The movie is unique, though, in how deliberately it seems to alternate between the frenetic and serene. A unique picture in the canon, I think.
#29 — THE DEVIL IN A CONVENT (1899)
THE DEVIL IN A CONVENT is one of the earlier Méliès films that would show what he would soon be doing almost exclusively; the big satanic pig face and elaborate cutouts are representative of his beautiful illustrated practical effects.
#28 — THE TREASURES OF SATAN (1902)
As I’ve pointed out before, Méliès loved Satan, and he loved making fun of religion. He used the former quite often to achieve the latter. THE TREASURES OF SATAN is a skewering of greed through just non-stop slapstick comedy and quick transformations.
#27 — THE INFERNAL CAKEWALK (1903)
This extended series of spooky, cave-based high jinks isn’t easy to distinguish from other Méliès films at first, but it’s just a genuinely solid comedy. I love the Satan-themed movies.
#26 — THE ENCHANTED WELL (1903)
I don’t care if it’s lazy, I’ll excerpt my full essay on THE ENCHANTED WELL. “Méliès’ comedic timing in other films like THE ENCHANTED WELL relies on non-stop, frantic action. That creates its own form of over-the-top, nerve-wracking comedy. THE ENCHANTED WELL, at just under four minutes, isn’t a slow, ponderous reversal of that timing, but nevertheless, its approach does feel markedly different. It takes just over a minute for the spectacular events and creatures to show up, which is unheard of in a Méliès short of this length. Once they do, the frantic nature of Méliès’ physical comedy delivers in spades, but a key moment indicates the level of comedic suspense he was hinting at with the beginning of the film.”
#25 — THE INFERNAL CAULDRON (1903)
Another “Satan does terrible shit to people” film, THE INFERNAL CAULDRON’s hand-tinting gives it an ethereal magic that quite honestly, almost on its own, elevates the movie. Its dark humor, in which Satan just straight up tortures people and is tormented in turn by their ghosts, keeps it at #25.
#24 — A MOONLIGHT SERENADE; OR, THE MISER PUNISHED (1904)
OK, I know this movie features Pierrot, because he’s trying to serenade Columbine. But her “miser” father shuts him down, causing a woman on the moon (again, a favorite) to help him out. Bizarrely, inexplicably, but beautifully, the moon fades out and an eye looks down upon the father, turning him into the “miser” outfit. When he tries to get back into his house, his servants hilariously beat him and a moon laughs down at him. A MOONLIGHT SERENADE; OR, THE MISER PUNISHED also has a great nighttime atmosphere afforded by the set.
#23 — BLUEBEARD (1901)
I mean, it should be clear since it’s placed at #23 out of 184, but BLUEBEARD is one of Méliès’ best films. The adaptation of the fairy tale is fittingly dark and wonderfully staged. There’s a great effect when the bodies of the titular villain’s wives are discovered. As I’ve written before, it’s one of the more muted films in the canon, making BLUEBEARD all the more lasting in my mind.
#22 — THE BRAHMIN AND THE BUTTERFLY (1901)
And THE BRAHMIN AND THE BUTTERFLY is much more conventional. But then, this is one of the films that made me fall in love with Méliès, besides A TRIP TO THE MOON. Its wonderful acrobatic tricks (you can see the wires) and the return of the “school play-esque” props, in the form of a delightful little caterpillar, make it as charming as any Méliès féerie.
#21 — TUNNELING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL (1907)
The concept of the “Chunnel” had bounced around for over 100 years before the project began in earnest in the ’80s, and Méliès offers another eerie forecast of the future with TUNNELING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL. He also provides one of the most entertaining of his “aquatic pictures,” a favorite category of the Méliès canon. It’s a bit of a loose designation, but there’s something so brilliantly composed about the cross-section framing of the excavation, and it’s funny besides. It’s difficult to understand today, but Méliès’ was as talented as creating fantasy worlds as he was at satirizing current events.
#20 — THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL (1904)
A concession to the burgeoning “realism” in film, THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL is a heartwarming or heartbreaking movie…depending on which version you see. I’ve devoted a whole essay to the subject before, but Méliès’ muted experiment paid off, resulting in one of his most emotionally consistent works.
#19 — THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM (1898)
Along with THE DEVIL IN A CONVENT, THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM is one of Méliès’ earliest films to successfully foretell the fantastic style that would develop in his body of work. Its darkly comic interaction with the heavens is the theme that runs throughout Méliès’ most well-known works. Read more about it here.
#18 — CINDERELLA OR THE GLASS SLIPPER (1912)
A “remake” of one of his earliest expansive successes, simply titled CINDERELLA, “OR THE GLASS SLIPPER” was a part of Méliès’ last year of filmmaking. It was a time defined by Hail Mary passes at nearly feature length epics. But at the end of the day, these final films were still deeply rooted in Méliès’ style and the stage féerie tradition. They couldn’t compete with the burgeoning realism and the true development of cinematic language notably occurring in Italy and America (and Méliès’ own native France). In hindsight, however, they rank among his best films, as we’ll see further down the list. OR THE GLASS SLIPPER is a sumptuous costume drama that improves on many aspects of the original CINDERELLA. But that expansion ends up hurting it, as Méliès pulled back from a ton of fantasy effects, perhaps to rival the other costume dramas that played things relatively straight. Still, THE GLASS SLIPPER stands as one of his most impressive productions.
#17 — THE KNIGHT OF THE SNOWS (1912)
In spite of his massive filmography, Méliès made disappointingly few adventure films like THE KNIGHT OF THE SNOWS. The director was able to utilize stagebound sets and painted backgrounds as tools in creating epic stories, and THE KNIGHT OF THE SNOWS is one of the best examples of that. Like THE GLASS SLIPPER, it was subjected to concerns about the burgeoning style of film, but you still get devils and magical women in THE KNIGHT OF THE SNOWS, a swashbuckling rescue story. I just love the mystically compelling title too.
#16 — GULLIVER’S TRAVELS AMONG THE LILLIPUTIANS AND THE GIANTS (1902)
As much as he experimented with perspective shifting, Méliès probably never topped himself after GULLIVER’S TRAVELS AMONG THE LILLIPUTIANS AND THE GIANTS. His Gulliver’s appearance at a table alongside the minuscule Lilliputians is one of the most convincing effects of the era, though of course you can detect the seams of the scene if you really look for them. But Gulliver’s unsettling encounter with the giants is perhaps even more indistinguishable, and both settings serve to illuminate this otherwise predictable adaptation.
#15 — INVENTOR CRAZYBRAINS AND HIS WONDERFUL AIRSHIP (1906)
This brief exploration of the hot topic of the time, the dirigible, is strengthened, perhaps irrationally, by its ethereal coloring. The pastels create a depth I’m not sure I can articulate; maybe I’m overreacting here, but it’s something quite unique in Méliès’ work. It feels almost like a Disney ride in the beauty of its artifice, which in general might be a running theme from here on in. But the scrolling darkness of the inventor’s dream in INVENTOR CRAZYBRAINS AND HIS WONDERFUL AIRSHIP resonates in a way I can’t quite describe.
#14 — RIP’S DREAM (1905)
Another film given magical life by its existing hand-tinting, RIP’S DREAM is a fittingly dreamlike jaunt through woodland sets that Méliès, at least in his surviving work, sadly underused. The parades of strange people and ghostlike figures are indicative of Méliès’ impressionistic approach to literary adaptations. He didn’t take things quite so literally; he often filtered emotions and plot points through his entirely visual lens, sensationalizing them to be easily understood via larger-than-life images.
#13 — THE PALACE OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS (1905)
A crowning achievement in color and space, THE PALACE OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS is a typical adventure story loosely based in ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. A poor prince embarks on a trial to win the hand of the princess he loves, gaining a dwarf helper and magic sword in the process and fighting numerous creatures in his journey. THE PALACE OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS may contain the most diverse menagerie of any Méliès film, one of the reasons why I adore it so. The archetypal fairy tale is rendered in incredible detail, as its backdrops communicate a depth impressive even among the best of his films. The opening in a forest and a room full of mirrors, especially, stretch the boundaries of what can be expected by the stagebound style of Méliès. But it also marked a true repetitive feeling in his body of work, and by 1905, he was facing serious pressure from other filmmakers and the industry at large for the first time.
#12 — THE ECLIPSE: COURTSHIP OF THE SUN AND MOON (1907)
THE ECLIPSE: COURTSHIP OF THE SUN AND MOON is a fascinating homoerotic (and to a certain extent, I suppose hetero-erotic) exploration by way of that old standby, the personification of celestial bodies. This is one of Méliès’ most sensuous films, and in that alone, it impresses. I’m just a sucker for the “face in the moon/sun” effect too. It’s just too silly.
#11 — AN ADVENTUROUS AUTOMOBILE TRIP (1905)
AN ADVENTUROUS AUTOMOBILE TRIP is probably one of Méliès most deceptively complex films, period. I should know; I wrote a nearly 2,000 word piece on how it connects to the genocidal Belgian king Leopold II. And it still succeeds as a bonkers live action cartoon, complete with exploding people and cars flying through the mountains. It was one of my most surprising discoveries, and a dear favorite of mine.
#10 — CINDERELLA (1899)
Probably Méliès’ first “epic” (at only five minutes long), CINDERELLA was a clear departure from the magician’s presentation trick films and even simpler “narrative” fantasies like THE ASTRONOMER’S DREAM. This was a movie trying to tell a story with multiple sets and convincing costumes and effects. Today, CINDERELLA is a tight fantasy relic, a capsule predecessor that contains a lot of the elements that would define the filmmaker’s best movies.
#9 — JOAN OF ARC (1900)
And if CINDERELLA was an epic, JOAN OF ARC was an unprecedented undertaking of size and depth. Again, today, it seems simple and short, but in 1900, the film was a radical artistic development. Its devotion to its title character is clear (as talk was already raging about canonizing the French heroine), and its ability to create heavenly figures as well as convincing combat and dungeon scenes. The final execution by burning at the stake and subsequent apotheosis are echoes of another era.
#8 — UNDER THE SEAS (1907)
It exists in a fragment, but UNDER THE SEAS (also known as 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA) has the potential to be one of Méliès’ best “aquatic” films that I mentioned above. Said aquatic films were defined by a slower pace, brilliantly realized creature props, and some of the most unique sets that showed up in his studio. Its finale, in which the main character fisherman comes into a chaotic fracas with numerous sea creatures, gives the best look at what could have been. At the end of the day, though, the theme and aesthetic of what we do have makes UNDER THE SEAS a top pick nevertheless.
#7 — THE WITCH (1906)
This surprise favorite has it all: a titular witch, brilliant coloring among the best that still survives today, detailed medieval sets, and fun effects. I don’t know what else to say about THE WITCH besides that it’s one of the most visually sumptuous films in Méliès’ canon, and primarily due to its coloring.
#6 — THE MERRY FROLICS OF SATAN (1906)
Probably the best of Méliès’ Faustian satires, THE MERRY FROLICS OF SATAN crosses the devilish tricks of those films with the journey paradigm of films like THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE and AN ADVENTUROUS AUTOMOBILE TRIP. The skeletal carriage ride through the heavens is one of the most iconic images of 1900s film, and the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the Devil fucks with his chosen victim are genuinely, morbidly hilarious.
#5 — BARON MUNCHAUSEN’S DREAM (1911)
One of the most successful late Méliès films (in hindsight), BARON MUNCHAUSEN’S DREAM is, fittingly, a fever dream made up of numerous bizarre encounters, scenarios, settings, and creatures. The visions through the mirror are fantastically framed and really communicate the crossover of this imaginary world into Munchausen’s reality.
#4 — THE CONQUEST OF THE POLE (1912)
Méliès’ last great film, THE CONQUEST OF THE POLE offers some questionable social commentary while executing one final remarkable “journey of discovery” story, tied as it was to then-contemporary accounts of Arctic exploration. The phenomenal snow giant “puppet,” if it can be called that, required 12 people to operate. It stands as a shining, out-of-date relic of another time, both in-fiction and in the context of Méliès’ career at the time.
#3 — THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE (1904)
The sunny counterpart to A TRIP TO THE MOON, THE IMPOSSIBLE VOYAGE was characterized by an even more frenetic pace and a doubling down on the lampooning of the scientific community of the day. It’s an amped up mirror image of A TRIP TO THE MOON, so it’s inherently less impactful. But it’s no less entertaining, and its effects and comedy are still very much well executed.
#2 — THE KINGDOM OF THE FAIRIES (1903)
Simultaneously one of those adventure/rescue films and aquatic pictures I love, THE KINGDOM OF THE FAIRIES is (clearly) one of the most dazzling films in Méliès’ oeuvre. Its main thrust is a damsel in distress tale, but along the way, the dashing prince hero encounters a magical underwater world that astounds him as much as the audience. I love the court of the “naiads” (I suppose you would call them), immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s HUGO (2011), and I love the cutouts of all the sea creatures. The whale specifically holds a special place in my heart. THE KINGDOM OF THE FAIRIES is just a wonderful nexus of all the best parts of a Méliès film; it’s 1900s comfort food, a phenomenal experience from start to finish with plenty of images to last through the years.
#1 — A TRIP TO THE MOON (1902)
But of course, A TRIP TO THE MOON is the most iconic of them all. People who have no knowledge of Méliès or film of the time in general have some awareness of the image of a moon with what appears to be a bullet in its eye. But A TRIP TO THE MOON is so much more than that…but of course that moment is amazing. It’s a commitment to an elevated mode of storytelling, an orgasmic explosion of numerous disciplines; adaptation, illustration, construction, acting (silly as it is), costuming, special effects. You get the idea. Top to bottom, A TRIP TO THE MOON is about as perfect as a film could get in 1902, and even for some time to come. With brilliant restorations and eye-popping color, its magic can even be felt strongly today.
Please watch the films of Georges Méliès! And if you have watched even a few of them, tell me what your favorites are!
