These are the six best live-action battles you are going to find in fantasy TV shows. Large-scale epic fantasy battles are usually the domain of movies where larger budgets can afford the extras, staging, long shoots, and visual effects required to make a huge fight feel real and properly devastating.
Fantasy battles in particular are difficult endeavors because, along with men riding horses, swinging swords, and shooting bows, you are probably going to need some dragons, giants, orcs, or zombies involved. Subsequently, there aren’t many live-action fantasy battles on TV, but the few we have are great.
The Battles Of The First Age
The Rings Of Power, Season 1, Episode 1, “A Shadow Of The Past”
Finrod fighting in a battle in The Rings of Power
The Rings of Power was pitched as a fantasy epic to rival Game of Thrones, and the huge price tag for the series was a sign that Amazon Prime Video was at least willing to have as many epic moments as the HBO series. As if a signal to viewers of what scale to expect, the show opens with a battle.
The start of The Rings of Power is similar to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. It opens with a flashback to a massive war between elves and orcs and the defeat of a dark lord, and ends with a reminder that evil is never truly gone. The screen time for the battle is fairly short, but it’s effective.
The screen is tinted red and grey, and legions of elves clash against orcs, and it’s one of the few times in the show where the fights aren’t interrupted by distracting visual effects. This is probably also the only time we’ll ever get a glimpse of Morgoth and his army of dragons, which has to elevate the battle.
The Outbreak In The Palace
Kingdom, Season 2, Episode 6, “Episode 6”
The South Korean horror fantasy series, Kingdom, is a wildly underseen Netflix series. If you like Shōgun, Game of Thrones, horror TV shows, and/or fantasy epics, queue up Kingdom right now. The series shows what happens when a large-scale zombie outbreak happens at the same time as a succession crisis in 17th century Korea.
There are a few larger battles in Kingdom between different grasping dynasties and between these dynasties and zombies. However, when the zombies show up, the battles turn into retreats; that is, until the final episode of the series. With their backs against the wall, Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) leads the living against the undead.
Despite being at night, the battle is incredibly well-lit, and you can easily tell humans from zombies, which helps up the tension and gives us a clear visualization of where our heroes stand in the battle. The last stand sequence, with Lee Chang utilizing a frozen pond as a defense, is cheer-worthy.
Battle Of Blackwater Bay
Game Of Thrones, Season 2, Episode 9, “Blackwater”
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Wildfire causes an explosion on Stannis’ fleet in Game of Thrones’ Battle of Blackwater
“Blackwater” is up there as one of the best Game of Thrones episodes in the series, and a big reason for that is the epic battle that takes up most of the episode. By the penultimate episode of season 2, Game of Thrones was well on its way to being one of the most important TV shows ever.
However, it’s this battle that showed Game of Thrones was going to be able to depict the large-scale battles of George R. R. Martin’s series. It’s an incredible fight, depicting the arrival of Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane) to King’s Landing, which is led improbably by Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage).
There are green wildfire explosions, brutal kills with men being sliced in pieces in every direction, an incredible speech by Tyrion, and critical character moments, including the Hound (Rory McCann) leaving his post and moving on, which has long-term reverberations for the whole series.
The Battle Of Culloden
Outlander, Season 3, Episode 1, “The Battle Joined”
The Battle of Culloden is a real historical battle that took place in 1746 in the Scottish Highlands between the Jacobite army under Charles Edward Stuart and the British government, which resulted in the defeat of the Jacobite forces and the end of the uprising. Outlander depicts this battle in the premiere of season 3.
A fantasy historical epic, Outlander’s story has been leading up to this battle for two seasons, and we finally see the fight in flashbacks in season 3. The episode opens with Jamie (Sam Heughan) coming out of a daze on the battlefield while memories of the battle come flooding back to him.
It’s a brilliantly filmed battle with the Jacobite soldiers charging a line of redcoats, who meet in a bloody melee that’s chaotic, but it’s still easy to tell what’s happening. What makes the battle is the climactic fight between Jamie and Black Jack Randall (Tobias Menzies), where Jamie stares down and dispatches his cruel nemesis.
Battle At Rook’s Rest
House Of The Dragon, Season 2, Episode 4, “The Red Dragon And The Gold”
House of the Dragon is even more of a chamber drama than Game of Thrones, which is a bit of a surprise considering how there are even more dragons and reasons for warfare in the George R. R. Martin prequel series. Season 1 is quiet, but in season 2, we begin to see hints of the wars to come.
One of the first major wars of the series in House of the Dragon comes in season 2, episode 4, and it’s the first time we’ve ever seen non-zombified dragons in a bloody battle in the entire franchise. It’s as shocking, violent, and intense as we could ever imagine.
All series, we’ve kept hearing about how dragons are basically nuclear weapons, and in this episode, we see why. When the soldiers on the ramparts of Rook’s Rest hear a roaring over the trees, you can see all the fight drained out of them. The arrival of Vhagar may as well be a hurricane approaching a dinghy.
Battle Of The Bastards
Game Of Thrones, Season 6, Episode 9, “Battle Of The Bastards”
Kit Harington Game of Thrones Battle of the Bastards.
Though Game of Thrones started to slip post-season 4, season 6 was a huge return to the quality people had expected from the series. One of the high points of the already high season comes in “Battle of the Bastards”, the title of the episode, and the name of the battle that takes up most of it.
It’s called the Battle of the Bastards because it’s a battle with both sides led by bastard sons, Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon). Jon leads the Freefolk and a handful of Northeners loyal to the Starks, and Ramsay leads the rest of the Kingdom he usurped.
There are intense moments of loss, starting with Rickon’s (Art Parkinson) death, amazingly choreographed fantasy battle sequences with horses crashing into each other with so much force you’ll feel it through the screen, and individual fights between characters that give them a satisfying send-off or a fist-pumping victory.