Mermaids are as much a staple of cinema history as they are mainstays of fairy tales and folklore. Movies throughout the decades have been mesmerized with the presence of these so-entrancing-yet-so-fearful sea creatures that many human cultures around the world are obsessed with, and directors have alternately found humor, allure, and macabre horror in the myths surrounding them.

Whether featuring them as conflicted protagonists torn between land and water, terrifying monsters, or perky romcom suitors, what follows is a list of the 12 best movies about mermaids — including several riffs on “The Little Mermaid,” a bonkers Polish horror musical, the ’80s hit that made the world fall in love with Tom Hanks, and a couple of childhood classics that you may or may not recognize. The only rule, with all respect to “Barbie” and its Mermaid Barbie, is that the mermaids themselves must figure as central elements in the story.

It’s not for nothing that Disney’s 1989 adaptation of the dark and disturbing Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale “The Little Mermaid” is probably the most iconic mermaid movie of all time. To be sure, there are several other film versions of “The Little Mermaid” that we could just as well cite: The 1968 Soviet animated short by Ivan Aksenchuk is a triumph of stylistic innovation, Tomoharu Katsumata’s 1975 anime take is lush and reverent to the source material, and 1976 saw both Czech and Soviet live-action arthouse versions that should satisfy anyone who likes their fairy tales a little more avant-garde.

But, as far as guaranteed mass appeal goes, there’s just no beating the movie that kicked off the Disney Renaissance and reinvented American animated cinema for a new generation. Directed by John Musker and Ron Clements, with songs by the powerhouse duo of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, and featuring the angel-voiced Jodi Benson in the role of Ariel, Disney’s “The Little Mermaid” is an ecstatic feat of beauty and emotion. This story of a mermaid princess who longs to get to know the human world above water is packed to the gills with unforgettable moments (as well as details you probably missed as a kid). Even after nearly four decades of cultural omnipresence, it still sparks the same childlike wonder, and still works our tear ducts.

Robert Eggers’ “The Lighthouse” stars Robert Pattinson (in maybe the wildest performance of his career) and Willem Dafoe (in one of the 20 wildest performances of his career) as two men trapped together under dire circumstances. Pattinson plays Ephraim Winslow, a former lumberjack who signs up for a four-week gig as a lighthouse keeper off the New England coast in the late 20th century. Under the supervision of the grouchy Thomas Wake (Dafoe), Winslow gradually takes on the heavy physical and psychological demands of his new job. Then the two men are stranded on the islet by a massive storm, and their isolation becomes a mutually assisted descent into madness.

It’s a bizarre film, caught somewhere between gripping, hilarious, and horrifying — the boldest and most uncompromising leap Eggers has yet taken as a filmmaker. Starting from Winslow’s erotic fixation with a mermaid scrimshaw he finds in his bedroom, “The Lighthouse” also incorporates mermaids into its story in ways that we’d do best not to spoil, but which count among the most fascinating cinematic uses ever of that particular mythological entity. After watching it, there’s a good chance you’ll find yourself wondering why nobody ever had the idea to make a movie about mermaids quite the way Eggers did.

A box office landmark, “The Mermaid” single-handedly reoriented the global film industry by proving that the Chinese market alone was enough to catapult a movie into the blockbuster realm. A very loose adaptation of “The Little Mermaid,” this 2016 film marked a career triumph for director Stephen Chow, who’s best-known among Western audiences for his elastic action comedies “Kung Fu Hustle” (one of the best kung fu movies of all time) and “Shaolin Soccer.” 

“The Mermaid” is a buoyant, fantasy-filled story of love sprouting from a conflict between nature and ruthless business interests. Liu Xuan (Deng Chao) is a real estate tycoon who purchases a wildlife reserve known as the Green Gulf, intending to drive away its marine life and fill it with land; in response, the merpeople who inhabit the Green Gulf plot to assassinate Xuan, and entrust the specially trained mermaid Shan (Lin Yun) with the task. She takes to dry land, intending to seduce Xuan and then kill him at the earliest opportunity, but things don’t quite go according to plan. Chow spins a singular combination of slapstick, lavish action, environmentalism, and romance from that setup, creating the kind of film that lays out its crowd-pleasing chops so clearly and persuasively that any ensuing financial success feels like a cosmic inevitability.

One of the most original feature directorial debuts of the 2010s, “The Lure” is also one of the most unclassifiable films you’re likely to come across in your life. Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska brings equal parts exuberance and grisliness to a mélange of musical, horror, and coming-of-age drama, balancing things out in such a way that no scene ever settles into comfort or predictability — yet every last minute of the runtime proves thrilling.

Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszańska play siren sisters Silver and Golden, who begin performing as singers at a Warsaw nightclub in the 1980s. While Golden discovers a thirst for human blood, Silver falls in love with Mietek (Jakub Gierszał), the bassist in the club’s resident band Figs and Dates. The sisters’ newly-discovered passions lead them to develop conflicting ambitions for their future among humans, with gruesome consequences.

The script by Robert Bolesto nominally adapts “The Little Mermaid,” but has louder echoes of the Brothers Grimm than of Hans Christian Andersen, featuring a go-for-broke use of fairy tale mechanics as a catalyst for hyper-violent imagery. At the same time, the whole thing is a ritzy, neon-colored hoot. There aren’t many other mermaid-themed films out there so simultaneously at peace with the whimsy and the terror of their folkloric subject matter.

Loosely based on the eponymous 2001 novel by Alice Hoffman, the Elizabeth Allen-directed “Aquamarine” stars Emma Roberts and JoJo as Claire Brown and Hailey Rogers, two inseparable best friends who live together in the small seaside town of Baybridge, Florida. One day, while the girls are preparing to part ways due to Hailey’s imminent move to Australia, a huge storm washes in Aquamarine (Sara Paxton). Aquamarine is a mermaid with the power to transform her tail into legs during the day, and who ran away from home to escape an arranged marriage. If she’s able to prove that true love exists, she’ll be liberated from said marriage by her father — and so, Aquamarine enlists the help of Claire and Hailey to woo lifeguard Raymond (Jake McDormand, the familiar face of Preston Wiley from Peacock’s “Mrs. Davis”).

A likely mainstay in the media diet of any kid who grew up in the 2000s, “Aquamarine” is a more sincere and agreeable kind of mermaid movie compared to some of the gnarlier entries on this list, but that doesn’t make it any less touching. In fact, underneath the film’s surface of broadly appealing family-friendly fun is a memorable lesson on the importance of female friendship and the value of personal authenticity. Anybody who was lucky enough to catch it in theaters or on TV as a teen may well have had their life enriched by it.

Curtis Harrington’s “Night Tide” should be better-known — a description that applies to the entire oeuvre of this one-of-a-kind American director. A maverick who got his start with experimental short films in his youth before segueing to unconventional genre work in the 1960s, Harrington had a knack for using horror to explore societal taboos and other themes dear to him as a queer filmmaker. “Night Tide,” his 1961 feature debut, exemplifies his strengths.

Starring Dennis Hopper in his first leading film role, “Night Tide” tells of Johnny Drake, a sailor spending his leave on the Santa Monica shore. One day, he’s smitten with Mora (Linda Lawson), a young woman who works as a carnival dancer. Mora plays the role of a half-fish woman, under the tutelage of her boss Capt. Samuel Murdock (Gavin Muir). Although Johnny and Mora are attracted to each other, peril hovers over their burgeoning relationship: Mora may or may not be a real mermaid, with a habit of luring and killing unsuspecting men during the full moon.

Moody, heartrending, and teeming with purposeful queer subtext, “Night Tide” is a mermaid movie that defies categorization, yet packs the kind of wallop for which no explanation is necessary. It’s an absolute gem of American indie cinema that already has cult classic status, but deserves an even bigger audience.

Not to be confused with the 2017 kids’ fantasy flick “Scales: Mermaids Are Real,” the 2019 Saudi-Emirati-Iraqi co-production “Scales” is an ambitious arthouse fantasy drama where mermaids are deployed as a metaphor for the cycle of ostracization, vilification, and consumption to which patriarchal society condemns women. The feature debut of director Shahad Ameen, it was submitted by Saudi Arabia as an entry for the 2021 Best International Feature Oscar, but wasn’t nominated. The Oscars’ loss, really. Few films in the International Feature field of that or any other year measure up to Ameen’s poetic creation.

In the film’s story, the inhabitants of a poor island village maintain a tradition in which each family must sacrifice a daughter to the local sea creatures, in order to ensure abundant fishing. Hayat (Basima Hajjar), a 12-year-old girl with scales on her feet, lives as an outcast after being unlawfully saved by her father (Yaqoub Al Farhan), but she refuses to take her ostracism sitting down. Through stark black-and-white photography and an inventive aesthetic sense, Ameen imagines Hayat’s predicament as a story of resistance, social awareness, and hard-earned self-discovery. It’s a great mermaid movie that would probably be a great movie even without any mermaids at all.

For all the imaginative variations on siren-centric storytelling that you’ll find scattered about this list, there are times when things don’t have to be all that complex to be compelling. Such is the case of “Miranda,” a charming 1948 romp that gives viewers pretty much everything they could possibly want out of a classic-style romantic comedy featuring a mermaid protagonist.

The mermaid in question, Miranda Trewella, is the kind of peppily enchanting romantic heroine that used to dominate the genre in the ’30s and ’40s. She’s played by Glynis Johns (best known today as the suffragette mom in “Mary Poppins”) with such charisma that it almost feels like we’re being introduced to an actual supernatural figure. Adapted by Peter Blackmore from his own play, “Miranda” follows Paul Martin (Griffith Jones), a young doctor who travels to Cornwall without his wife Clare (Googie Withers) for a fishing trip. Once there, he’s kidnapped by the titular mermaid, who won’t let him go until he agrees to take her to see London.

Paul devises a convoluted plan to host Miranda in his home, involving long dresses, a bath chair, and a nurse (Margaret Rutherford) who’s happily game for tending to a mermaid. Then Miranda complicates his plans by proving herself an irrepressible flirt — and all manner of daffy, fantastical hijinks ensue.

Japanese director Masaaki Yuasa is among the most visionary filmmakers working in the world today, but because his work is in animation, he hardly ever gets due credit. What’s wondrous about Yuasa’s craft is that he’s able to meld experimentalism with a rousing, ringmaster-esque sensibility, creating movies so fun that it hardly registers how much of a leap of faith they’re asking the average viewer to take. Once you see this movie, you’ll want to see more of Masaaki Yuasa’s best work.

“Lu Over the Wall,” Yuasa’s 2017 musical fantasy, is a clear-cut example of his genius. Its story follows Kai Ashimoto (Shota Shimoda), a 9th-grade boy from the coastal town of Hinashi, who plays in a rock band with his friends. One day, Kai decides to make a visit to the nearby Merfolk Island, and that’s where he happens upon Lu (Kanon Tani), a local ningyo, or fish-person. The two strike up a whimsical friendship, with Kai’s music and Lu’s merfolk spirit sparking a whirlwind in Hinashi — until a more complicated side of their dynamic begins to surface. Eventually, Lu becomes the target of rising bigotry and hostility. Narratively modest by Yuasa’s standards, “Lu Over the Wall” nonetheless demonstrates how much visual and tonal command he’s able to exert over even the simplest of stories. There isn’t a moment in the film that isn’t a joy to behold.

“Splash” is the film that jumpstarted Tom Hanks’ film career, as well as setting up a superstar breakthrough for Daryl Hannah. Helmed by Ron Howard, by then three films into a consistent run as a director, this 1984 fantasy-tinged romcom became a massive hit (so massive, in fact, that the sequel almost killed Disney’s chance to bring “The Little Mermaid” to the big screen) with its tale of a young man unwittingly falling for a mermaid.

Beginning with a prologue in which an 8-year-old Allen Bauer (David Kreps) jumps into the ocean at Cape Cod and holds hands with a mermaid girl (Shayla MacKarvich), “Splash” then leaps forward to Allen’s adulthood as a successful New York City businessman. Now played by Tom Hanks, he’s resigned himself to a life of constant romantic misery when the mermaid, played as an adult by Hannah, comes back into his life.

Adopting the name “Madison” from a street sign and wearing legs that will turn back to a tail if splashed with water, she poses as a human and falls for Allen as quickly as he falls for her. Their zippy love story leads to all the silliness you’d expect from a high-concept ’80s blockbuster comedy, but Hanks and Hannah are so charming that they manage to anchor the mayhem in a sense of wholesome humanity. It’s basically an irresistible movie.

Premiering six years after “Miranda,” 1954’s “Mad About Men” was also written by Peter Blackmore, also released by the U.K.’s General Film Distributors, and also starred both Glynis Johns as Miranda Trewella and Margaret Rutherford as Nurse Carey — but it was confusingly billed as not a sequel by the studio. Perhaps they were hoping that its mostly standalone story would be taken on its own merits. Marketing oddities aside, it’s understandable why the makers of “Mad About Men” would want the movie to stand alone. It’s a delightfully self-sufficient little fantasy comedy.

As in “Miranda,” there’s no rocket science at play. Simple plotting and jubilant personality are all it takes to get things up and running. The same bubbly and endlessly curious mermaid as ever, Johns’ Miranda this time trades places with Caroline Trewella (also played by Johns), a distant human relative. Feigning an accident that supposedly left her wheelchair-bound, Caroline goes off on a biking trip, and Miranda begins to wreak havoc, with Nurse Carey again by her side as the down-for-everything squire. It’s a movie as light and floaty as a soufflé, in which the sheer charm of Glynis Johns makes for its own spectacle. Meanwhile, Rutherford proves why she was one of the most beloved supporting actresses of her time.

Produced as a film school thesis project but able to find an audience far beyond the festival circuit, “Blue My Mind” is a 2017 coming-of-age film from Swiss director Lisa Brühlmann that takes a familiar concept — fantasy-laden body horror as a metaphor for the rude awakening of puberty — and then makes it work through sincerity and conviction.

Echoing the works of Julia Ducournau, David Cronenberg, and Catherine Hardwicke, Brühlmann’s film tells the story of Mia (Luna Wedler), a 15-year-old girl who, while adjusting to a new city and trying to get on her schoolmates’ good graces, begins to notice a number of transformations in her body and mind. A membrane begins to grow between her toes, her legs lose their color, her behavior grows erratic and destructive, and she’s suddenly consumed by a bottomless appetite for fish meat.

“Blue My Mind” examines the concept of mermaids from the inside out, with every step in Mia’s metamorphosis yielding new insights about their symbolic charge. But what makes the movie stay with you is the preciseness with which it hones in on Mia, and on the messy emotions raging for space within her. It’s a wonderful, queer coming-of-age story, where the fantasy elements are a perfect conduit for the rough realities of trying to make it out of adolescence alive.