The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Arabian Nights refers to a body of works that are adapted from or mimic the style of the Arabian Nights/One Thousand Nights and a Night/1001 Nights, a classic series of stories originating out of the Persian oral tradition around the 9th-10th centuries. These are told by the Scheherazade who has married the sultan Schariar who kills all his brides on their wedding night. Her solution is to leave the ending of each story unfinished to be completed the following night in order to spare her life. Classic tales such as the adventures of Sinbad, Ali Baba and Aladdin all originate here.
On screen, Hollywood has created a fantasticised version of Arabia (usually inhabited by Caucasian faces) filled with wily thieves, noble princes, evil viziers with ill intentions towards virtuous princesses, of flying carpets, genies and magic lamps.
The first Hollywood Arabian Nights film was the silent Douglas Fairbanks The Thief of Bagdad (1924), a grand swashbuckling adventure original to the screen. This underwent a lush colour remake as The Thief of Bagdad (1940) and was followed by a series of films throughout the 1940s, although most of these placed an emphasis on adventure, swashbuckling and romance but minimised the fantasy.
The genre regained its feet with Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), which was a pure adventure designed to showcase his stop-motion animated creature effects. This inspired two sequels and a renewed series of adventures.
In more recent years, there was the success of Disney’s animated Aladdin (1992), which took an almost entirely comedic approach to the genre.
A popular hit among the 1990s renaissance of Disney animation, this is a glib work that allows the original story to be overrun with hip-jokes and Robin Williams being Robin Williams
As part of the ongoing firesale, Disney offer up a live-action remake of their animated hit. where a mismatched Guy Ritchie delivers a mediocre rehash of what was an overrated classic in the first place
The second of two video-released sequels to Disney’s Aladdin that brings back Robin Williams as the genie and goes madcap with the pop culture jokes
One amid the popular fad of Arabian Nights adventures made by Hollywood during the 1940s. Here the story of Ali Baba is subverted to become a swashbuckling romantic adventure
This tries hard to be another The Thief of Bagdad but is never too much more than a run through the cliches of the Arabian Nights adventure rewritten for the post-Star Wars era
A Hollywood version of the Arabian Nights that throws out the story’s unique narrative structure and substitutes the colourful spectacle of the swashbuckling adventure. With Shemp Howard as Sinbad!
Controversial director Pier Paolo Pasolini offers up a far more adult telling of the Arabian Nights than we are used to, not to mention one that goes on location in the real Arabia
Hallmark tv mini-series adaptation of the classic tales has been granted a decent budget that allows the stories to emerge with lavish spectacle and the fantasy to fly with exceptional regard
This is not an adaptation of the Arabian Nights but the title has been appropriated for a collection of quasi-fantastical tales and even documentaries about the Portuguese Austerity Crisis over six hours in length
Next to Hayao Miyazaki, Michel Ocelot is the greatest animators of all time but one of the least widely recognised. Here he conducts a beautifully made Arabian fairytale
A cheaply made Arabian Nights fantasy adventure that came out seeking to copy ride the coattails of the success of Ray Harryhausen’s The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
The second of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, an Arabian Nights adventure. Made as a vehicle for Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects, which are stunning. Everything about the film is classic
Amiable Danish-made Arabian Nights fantasy for children that has the benefit from being shot on location in Turkey
Adaptation of the popular videogame that ventures into Arabian Nights adventure, this was a box-office flop. It swashbuckles entertainingly but Jake Gyllenhaal feels badly miscast as a buffed adventure hero
A weak video-released spinoff of Disney’s Aladdin that began Disney’s habit throughout the 90s/00s of generating cheap sequels to their animated classics
Road to Morocco was the third of the Bob Hope-Bing Crosby Road films and takes them on a parody of the Arabian Nights adventure
Cheap mockbuster from The Asylum that was designed to exploit the success of the flop Prince of Persia. While ostensibly a Sinbad film, this confusingly abandons the Arabian Nights milieu and is set contemporary where Sinbad is not sailor but a corporate CEO stranded on a desert island
One of the classic films from cult stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen, an Arabian Nights fantasy adventure where Harryhausen’s creations prove to be quite wondrous
The third of Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films, this came out the same year as Star Wars and Harryhauden’s stop-motion animated creatures look much more flat in comparison
The Asylum attempt a modern-day Sinbad film – one where Sinbad uses a cellphone and sets sail to L.A. aboard a regular yacht. This is so cheap that it has even been stripped of all the exotic creatures
An early CGI animated film conducted on a cut-price budget that tells further adventures of Sinbad
DreamWorks animated Sinbad adventure by the numbers that seems to go out of its way to tell a Sinbad story divorced of its Islamic cultural background
An incredibly bad Italian-made Sinbad adventure starring Lou Ferrigno that is laughable in its dialogue and acting and incredibly tatty in its budget pinching
The very first Sinbad film. Douglas Fairbanks Jr is cast to capitalise on the swashbuckling name of his father. It is odd seeing a Sinbad film that eliminates fantasy adventure in favour of talk, although it eventually mounts a likeably energetic show
Legendary animated masterpiece from Richard Williams that was butchered in release. Williams’ animation is visually extraordinary
An Arabian Nights adventure that offers up one of the purest blends of fantasy and romance of its era. Filled with stunning directorial set-pieces and magnificent sets and all shot in colour.
Dull remake of the classic Arabian Nights film that casts Steve Reeves and tries to make it into a Hercules peplum adventure
The fourth film version of the Arabian Nights adventure, a tv movie released theatrically in some parts.
Part of the fad during the 1940s for swashbuckling Arabian Nights adventures, this tells the story of Aladdin and is more embracing of the fantasy elements than most of the other films of this period
George Miller of Mad Max fame makes a fantastical and charming film where djinn Idris Elba appears to Tilda Swinton
A majorly unfunny variant on the Arabian Nights comedy featuring Dick Shawn as a demoted genie. The Thief of Bagdad as shabby flying carpet burlesque