Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

IMDb plot summary: The legendary Greek hero leads a team of intrepid adventurers in a perilous quest for the legendary Golden Fleece.

Directed by Don Chaffey. Stars Todd Armstrong, Nancy Kovack, and Gary Raymond.

Jason and the Argonauts is an epic fantasy adventure telling the legend of Jason assembling a crew to go find the Golden Fleece, which will allow him to unseat the unlawful ruler of his country. The story here is pretty simple, but the creativity of the filmmaking is what makes me recommend this movie. The film uses stop-motion animation, in collaboration with Ray Harryhausen, to portray the various creatures the adventurers must defeat to achieve their goals. While these obviously aren’t photorealistic the way that we’ve come to expect of our adventure movies in the 2020s, it truly brings out the fantasy nature of the story. It’s delightful to see these statues and animated creatures interacting with our real-life performers, and, for me anyway, it means it’s never boring – it even keeps the exposition short so we can get to the next battle quickly. This was a surprisingly fun watch!

How it entered my Flickchart:

🎥 Jason and the Argonauts (1963)

📊 Ranked #1146/4052 on my Flickchart

🎯 Flickscore™: 73

beat The Commitments (#2022 → #2227)

lost to Re-Animator (#1010 → #1011)

beat The Muppet Christmas Carol (#1516 → #1617)

lost to Hoodwinked! (#1262 → #1145)

beat The Harder They Fall (#1388 → #1786)

beat Corrina, Corrina (#1325 → #1372)

beat Shadow of the Vampire (#1293 → #1294)

beat Maine Pyar Kiya (#1277 → #1276)

beat Punch-Drunk Love (#1269 → #1334)

beat Logan's Run (#1265 → #1296)

beat The Palm Beach Story (#1263 → #1266)