Film

Stardust

Name: Stardust
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Family
Released: 2007
Cast: Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mark Strong, Jason Flemyng

Other titles called Stardust: the 1974 film, the 2020 film.

Stardust is a fairy tale that knows exactly what it is and has enormous fun with the fact — swashbuckling, funny, occasionally properly mean, with real wonder humming underneath the winking. Charlie Cox's earnest hero blunders through witches, sky pirates and fratricidal princes to deliver a literal fallen star to his crush. Comfort viewing for anyone who wants Narnia with a smirk and a body count.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love fairy tales that wink at their own conventions, with a tender romance, a sly villain trio, and a swashbuckling sky-pirate who steals every scene he's in.

Skip it if you want a lean, tightly plotted quest; this one wanders happily through detours, and its cheerful whimsy may feel slight if you prefer grit or stakes that really bite.

What it asks of you: Settle in for just over two hours of ambling episodes that shift tone quickly, from giddy comedy to sudden romance, and let it take its time getting where it's headed.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Princess Bride1987

The urtext for fantasy-romance-with-jokes — witty narration, an absurd quest, and a villain gallery having more fun than anyone should. If you liked Stardust's tone, this is where it learned it.

But The effects and pacing are unmistakably 1980s; if you want your fantasy glossy and fast, it'll feel quaint.

Howl's Moving Castle2004

Miyazaki's tumbling, gorgeous fantasy romance has the same sense of a magical world running on its own eccentric rules, plus a walking castle that's frankly better than any effect Hollywood's managed.

But The plot wanders more than it resolves — dreamlike and beautiful, but not always logical.

Enchanted2007

Same year, same wink-at-the-genre spirit: a fairy-tale princess crashes into modern New York and the film has an absolute blast with the collision. Amy Adams is perfect.

But It's Disney through and through — sweeter and safer than Stardust's occasional nastiness.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Stardust

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Pan's Labyrinth2006

Both send a young protagonist through a door into a magical land bordering a grim reality, and both treat that land's rules as deadly serious — Pan's Labyrinth just refuses to let you laugh your way out of it.

The same fairy-tale bones — a faun, impossible tasks, a girl who might not know she's a princess — but del Toro plays it as war-torn horror instead of romantic comedy. Devastating and gorgeous.

But This is not a family film. It's violent, sad, and offers none of Stardust's reassurance that everything will work out.

Practical Magic1998

Witches, curses, and a stubborn romantic streak running through everything — a lighter, more domestic magic than Stardust's, but with the same insistence that love and spellcraft are basically the same problem.

But Tonally uneven — it swings from cosy to genuinely dark and back without much warning.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe2005

Another door into a fully-realised magical country with its own politics, witches and talking beasts, played with the same big-budget sincerity Stardust brings to its sky pirates.

But More explicit religious allegory and aimed younger — less innuendo, less menace.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe poster

The NeverEnding Story1984

A kid gets pulled into a dying fantasy realm that needs saving, with practical creature effects that still feel genuinely strange and wonderful. Same portal-fantasy DNA, decades earlier.

But Slower and stranger than modern fantasy, with an ending that upset a generation of children.

MirrorMask2005

Another Neil Gaiman world, this one drawn by Dave McKean — a teenage girl slips into a surreal alternate city full of masked courts and sphinxes. Same author's fingerprints, wilder visuals.

But Low budget shows; it's stranger and more melancholy than Stardust, with less humour to soften it.

Legend1985

Ridley Scott's fairy tale has unicorns, a young Tom Cruise, and Tim Curry as a genuinely unsettling devil — the same fable logic as Stardust, played with more dread.

But It's more myth than plot, and the pacing drags through the middle third.

Ella Enchanted2004

A lighter, teen-pitched fairy-tale comedy with a heroine literally cursed into obedience — silly, likeable, and unpretentious about being a fairy tale.

But Broader and goofier, aimed squarely at a younger audience than Stardust's slightly barbed wit.

The Thief of Bagdad1940

Same shape entirely — a young man crosses into a magical world to win his love, meeting genies, witches and flying carpets along the way. Stardust is basically this story in modern dress.

Astonishing Technicolor effects for their era, a swashbuckling romantic quest, and a puckish thief hero who's clearly Tristan's ancestor by several generations.

But The pace and performance style are pure 1940, and some of its era's attitudes haven't aged well.

Good Omens2019

Written by Neil Gaiman himself — the same dry, affectionate narrator's voice that treats the fantastical as slightly exasperating domestic business, just aimed at an angel, a demon and the apocalypse instead of a fallen star.

David Tennant and Michael Sheen are a joy as an odd-couple angel and demon trying to stop Armageddon out of sheer mutual fondness. Same wit, same warmth, wildly different scale.

But It's a six-episode series, not a two-hour film, and its comedy is drier and more British than Stardust's swashbuckle.