One of the most successful movie franchises about magicians released its third movie with Now You See Me: Now You Don’t. The new release brings back the Four Horsemen from the original film, as well as the latest additions from the second movie, and puts them together with three new young magicians to pull their latest heist.
Fans of movies with magicians in the leading roles have been lucky to see some big releases over the years. These are not only movies about magic, as many of those are more fantastical. Instead, the best movies about magicians are about the people who do this as an occupation, and some have real skills and others remain frauds.
Oz The Great And Powerful (2013)
Oz the Great and Powerful is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, focusing on how the Wizard ended up in Oz. As anyone who watched the original movie knows, the Wizard is not magical, but he is instead a skilled magician who uses tricks and sleight-of-hand to put himself in a position of power in Oz.
James Franco stars as Oz, the con-artist and stage magician who gets to the Land of Oz after a hot air balloon is hit by a tornado. Believed to be a wizard, he takes it upon himself to bring peace to the land. It is an interesting slant on the story, especially considering his vilification in Wicked years later.
While movies like Wicked showed the magic to be real, although Oz is only a magician there as well, Oz the Great and Powerful allows him to operate as a skilled magician as he tries to help the people of this broken land.
Houdini (1953)
Released in 1953, Houdini stars Tony Curtis as Harry Houdini, the man widely considered to be one of the greatest escape artists and magicians in history. Based on the book of the same name by Harold Kellock, the movie is a fictionalized recounting of Houdini’s life and his rise as a stage magician.
Janet Leigh also stars as Bess Houdini, his wife, and the movie follows his life as a carnival performer to his work in a safe factory, and finally his international success as an escape artist. It also focused on him exposing the con artists involved in the spiritualist movement, with mediums conning people into speaking to the dead.
The movie was a disappointment when released, making very little at the box office, and leaving Tony Curtis disappointed with its lack of commercial success. However, it is an intriguing look at one of the world’s most famous magicians.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010)
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was a Disney live-action movie that was loosely based on the classic 1940 Disney animated film, Fantasia. The scenes with Mickey Mouse and the magic gone wild were the influence here, with Jay Baruchel as a college student who becomes the hapless apprentice to an ancient sorcerer played by Nicolas Cage.
The movie works best with Baruchel’s Dave, who clearly has no idea what he is doing and is the live-action version of Mickey Mouse, being unable to control the magic as it goes wild. However, Cage is also at the top of his game here, delivering a masterful hammy performance as the exasperated sorcerer.
Critics were not impressed, and it has a lower 40% Rotten Tomatoes rating, but it is much more entertaining than that score might suggest. This isn’t so much about magicians and their skills, but more of a fun movie about magic.
The Great Buck Howard (2008)
The Great Buck Howard was released in 2008 with John Malkovich starring as Buck Howard, a character inspired by the famed mentalist known as The Amazing Kreskin. In real life, Kreskin became popular when he began appearing on television using his mentalist skills, always proclaiming he was not a psychic, noting the differences.
The movie follows Buck Howard at the height of his popularity in the 1970s. However, the star here is Colin Hanks, who plays Troy, who rejects his father’s (Tom Hanks) career suggestions to become a lawyer by dropping out of school and becoming a writer in Los Angeles. It is here that he became Buck Howard’s manager.
This is more of a movie about showing how hard it is to work on the road as a magician, or in this case, a mentalist. Malkovich is fantastic in his role as the aging mentalist, while Hanks holds his own as the young man lost in the whirlwind of the magician’s downward spiral.
The Magician (1958)
One of the most acclaimed Swedish directors in history is Ingmar Bergman, and in 1958, he released his movie about magicians, simply titled The Magician. The movie stars Max von Sydow as a traveling magician named Albert Vogler, who puts on magic shows that he claims are steeped in the supernatural.
However, the film shows him arriving in a small village where the population remains highly skeptical of his claims, making this a battle of wills between the magician and the townspeople. Bergman adds elements of psychological horror and drama to make this unlike most movies about magicians.
The movie was highly praised, sitting at a perfect 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. Bergman, who has several masterpieces over his career as a director, delivered an almost perfect movie about magic here. It ended up winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.
Now You See Me (2013)
The first Now You See Me movie introduced the world to the Four Horsemen, a group of stage magicians who use their talents to steal from the rich and give back to the poor. It is a clear Robin Hood story that sees the magicians using their talent to ensure that the people who profit from others’ pain pay the price.
There was a second movie where they were forced into action for someone else, and the latest film sees the Horsemen used by a trio of young magicians to pull a major heist on a blood diamond dealer. The franchise goes to painstaking lengths to show how the team pulled its pranks, almost like patting itself on the back.
However, getting past the elaborate heists and the magical talents of the characters, what helps Now You See Me succeed is the chemistry between the cast members, and that still carries the franchise to great heights with the third movie in the series.
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013)
When The Incredible Burt Wonderstone was released in theaters, it didn’t receive much praise, as it looked like a terrible movie about magicians based on promos. The cast included Steve Carell as Las Vegas magician Burt Wonderstone, while Steve Buscemi was his former partner, and Jim Carrey was a street magician.
However, what no one expected was that it would be a great movie, even though it was a box office bomb. Critics also criticized the film, awarding it a 37% Rotten Tomatoes rating though still praising its humor and outrageous conceit. That said, when it comes to magic, it received high praise from professional magicians.
Jim Carrey was back on form in the movie after a decade of dialing things back. Furthermore, in a video where he is discussing magic in films, Penn Jillette admits that The Incredible Burt Wonderstone is Ray Teller’s favorite magic movie.
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Nightmare Alley is also a movie about mentalists and not magicians, but it is played in a way where they play it off as supernatural magic. The original film came out in 1947, but the Guillermo del Toro remake from 2021 is the movie most people should seek out if they want to see the story.
Bradley Cooper is Stan Carlisle, a man who joins a traveling carnival and learns mentalism from the carnival’s clairvoyant act (Toni Collette and David Strathairn). Stand is then able to pull off the act with great skill, but once he begins to find success on a larger stage, he ends up falling when he crosses a femme fatale (Cate Blanchett).
Del Toro presented an incredible-looking film, with masterful performances throughout. It has an 81% Rotten Tomatoes rating and earned four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
The Illusionist (2006)
The Illusionist remains a mostly forgotten movie about magicians, thanks to it coming out in 2006, the same year that the more successful Christopher Nolan movie, The Prestige, was released. Both films were period pieces about magicians, but they told wildly different stories.
While The Prestige was a film about rival magicians trying to one-up each other, The Illusionist starred Edward Norton as a skilled magician who only wanted to get what he believed he deserved out of life. This was more of a love story, and one where Norton’s magician uses every trick in the book to fool his targets.
The movie was a box office success and received favorable reviews. It even picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography, which was important as the film was setting up its tricks with meticulous precision.
The Prestige (2006)
Christopher Nolan has become one of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers over the last two decades, but one of his best films doesn’t get enough attention. In 2006, Nolan took a break from his Batman movies to make the movie The Prestige. This film is a period piece about two magicians who are former friends turned rivals.
There is a bit of a sci-fi focus on this movie, as the two magicians are masters at sleight-of-hand and stage show magic, but they are also involved in some scientific experiments that lead them into more deadly areas of focus. This was all to help one man gain revenge after the death of his loved one.
Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale were magnificent in their roles as the rivals, while Michael Caine delivered another excellent performance as the veteran magician. In the end, Nolan pulled off some massive tricks of his own, making this a movie about magicians that succeeded on every level.
