Playing Minecraft—an open-world sandbox video game—is geeky enough on its own. But using it to build a computer inside the game, or even faithfully recreate towns or objects from movies, books, and other video games, is super geeky. And honestly, we’re here for it.
Sure, you can hop into a new world in the game, and wander around collecting supplies, mining for ore, and fighting the Ender Dragon, but why stop there? Why not push the game to its limits and show off what you can really do in the game by building something spectacular like these folks did? And better yet, why not use a cool texture pack to knock it out of the park?
Well, as it turns out, lots of people have created some downright astonishing builds, flush with crazy detail you just can’t stop looking at. Some of them even include tutorials and download instructions (and in some cases, also what texture pack they’re using), so you can build them yourself in whatever version of Minecraft you use.
Without further ado, here are 20 of the coolest and most jaw-dropping things that clever (and seriously dedicated) Minecraft players have ever built.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House
If you’ve ever seen famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s impressive 1939 Fallingwater house, you can appreciate the work that must have gone into this Minecraft build. The Pennsylvania house, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, focuses on celebrating what Wright called “organic architecture.”
And true to that effort, we can see that the Minecraft enthusiast who recreated the iconic house here, Rogerio Aguiar, also paid close attention to the nature and the materials chosen for the house. As a result, we get to enjoy looking at some beautiful scenery in addition to the house.
Minas Tirith, from The Lord of the Rings
Any Lord of the Rings fan worth their salt will appreciate this majestic build, which features Minas Tirith, the capital city of Gondor. The talented builders on the Minecraft Middle-Earth YouTube channel tackled Tolkein’s massive city, home to the stories of both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
But this city of Kings isn’t just a shiny facade—it’s packed with insane details. The video shows off fully-furnished houses, battle structures, and even an underlying sewer system. We only wish the video was longer so we could see more of it!
An International Airport
If you search for Minecraft airports on YouTube, you’ll have dozens of video results pop up, each with its own equally impressive take. We like this one, though, as it features a super-smooth timelapse of the overall build. Builder iRoxer included all kinds of details—large and small alike—from the plants in the parking structures to the giant terminals.
And just like the real thing, building this airport was clearly a giant undertaking. But wow, does it look good! This video is part of bigger series. The second video focuses on planes, gates, and cargo; the third video covers gates, a bus hub, and police; the fourth video details interior design; and lastly, the fifth video adds a few more details to the cargo area and surroundings.
The USS Enterprise, from Star Trek
One of the best-known spaceships in geek lore is Star Trek‘s USS Enterprise, NCC-1701. This specific version of the Federation Constitution-class starship is from the 2009 J.J. Abrams movie, though you can easily find other versions of the ship on YouTube as well.
This video, from user Algonata, shows bits of both the exterior and interior of the ship, recreated in Minecraft scale 1:1, including the deck. We’re sure Gene Roddenberry would be impressed!
A Modern City
Given that most people start off in a fresh Minecraft world by building a house to sleep in, it makes sense that someone would eventually decide to build an entire city. On the Keralis YouTube channel, the builder teamed up with an IRL architect to build out a detailed, decorated modern city (and a surrounding port).
As the video zooms around the city, we can see all kinds of fantastic things, from yachts and a harbor to skyscrapers and stoplights. Heck, there are even details like park benches, outdoor restaurants, gardens, and a rooftop helicopter. It’s almost as much fun to walk around this modern city as it is to walk around a city in real life.
A Tyrannosaurus Rex
I’m not gonna lie—if I saw this enormous Tyrannosaurus Rex walking around my city one day, I’d be terrified. This cool builder, inostupid, completed a dino mega-build schematic that’s based on the ARK: Survival Evolved video game series. There are all kinds of great details to fawn over in the video, from the t-rex’s highly-textured skin to its enormous tail. I’d be in awe if I wasn’t so scared …
The Parthenon
One of Ancient Greece’s most well-known buildings, the Parthenon, is a temple located on the Athenian Acropolis. The Parthenon is dedicated to the goddess Athena and was originally completed in 438BC.
Builder Trydar recreated the massive temple and wasn’t shy on the architectural details, like colonnades, pediments, and winged horse ornaments. Actually, they built a couple of versions of it, using a different variety of blocks each time. They also listed, in front of each building, how many of each block they used to build the Parthenon, which is a surprisingly interesting detail.
King’s Landing from Game of Thrones
If you’re anything like us, you watched the crap out of HBO’s Game of Thrones adaptation (and are still totally mad about the ending). Anyway, King’s Landing was undeniably one of the most remarkable cities in that entire series, and the folks over on the WesterosCraft YouTube channel build the city in jaw-dropping detail—this is one of the most outstanding Minecraft builds ever.
As the cinematic video tour progresses, we can see all the major buildings, like the Red Keep, the Great Sept of Baelor, and thousands of houses, streets, markets, fields, rivers, and even ships. This project must have taken years to plan out and build.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
No list of epic Minecraft builds would be complete without featuring one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, of course. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is among the most visually stunning of the seven, making it a fantastic challenge for any serious builder.
And YouTuber DrLaclas didn’t disappoint with this rendition, which was all (amazingly) built-in Survival mode, not in Creative. This gorgeous build is absolutely gigantic, with the surrounding decor in addition to all of the lush greenery on the building itself. It’s a fun desert-based design, which you don’t tend to see as much compared to those of other biomes.
A Giant Pyramid
Speaking of deserts, how about a gigantic Egyptian pyramid? This one opted for a luxe (and more terrifying) Stargate-esque build over the traditional sandstone, but it really makes a bold statement.
In front of the towering pyramid, YouTuber TrixyBlox opted to build two giant pharaoh statues. And between them, near the top, is a giant eye. This build is fantastic, and it would surely strike fear into the nearby residents were it actually real. Thankfully, it’s not.
Disneyland’s Splash Mountain Ride
When you can’t actually be in Disneyland, perhaps the next best thing is to experience one of the rides virtually. That’s right—someone actually built a functioning version of Splash Mountain in Minecraft and it looks so amazing!
This video puts you in the shoes of a Disneyland tourist. In it, you’ll get to experience all of the same fun without having to buy a park ticket! The POV video lets “you” walk through that ride’s lines, hop in your boat, and “ride” the ride. You’ll see tons of cute gardening details and other decorations that pull you right in. You can even have someone splash you with a cup of water at the end if you want. See? So fun.
A Football Stadium
If sports are more your thing—and more specifically, the Raiders—you’ll enjoy this timelapse build of the Allegiant football stadium. There’s the field with all of its markings, of course, as well as the end posts, stadium seats, and roof. Heck, the builder (TheHolder) even threw in a parking lot. Hopefully, they have tasty snacks there, too!
Blackbeard’s Pirate Ship
What could strike more fear into the hearts of men than a dreadful pirate ship? How about the iconic Queen Anne’s Revenge, the vessel that belonged to the infamous pirate Blackbeard? It boasted 40 cast-iron cannons and measured over 100 feet long.
YouTuber Lord Dakr takes us through a gripping tutorial, for those interested in building the ship yourselves, as well as a grand tour. And although it’s a small feature, my favorite details are the (seemingly) in-motion cannonballs shooting out from each side of the ship.
The Palace of Versailles
Stepping back onto solid land now, we take a look at yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site—the majestic Palace of Versailles. And, okay, while it isn’t fully to scale compared to its real-life counterpart, the builders on the JuicyTaz210 YouTube channel did their best to match the elegant European architecture in this fancy build.
And despite the fact that this particular build excludes a tour of the palace’s iconic surrounding gardens, we still might just say that this version is fit for a king.
A Massive Underground Kingdom
A big city is one thing, but what if you built a sprawling underground kingdom in a custom cave? YouTuber TrixyBlox did just that using WorldPainter—an interactive map generator for the game that allows you to custom edit massive chunks of terrain in your game. And the result? A frankly otherworldly cavern filled with hilltop castles, murky glowing mushrooms, buildings set into huge stalactites, and winding stairways—complete with sea monsters, dragons, and more. Why didn’t we think of that?
The Death Star Ruins, from Star Wars
Although there are hundreds (if not thousands) of Star Wars-themed Minecraft builds littered across YouTube, this one might just take the cake. It’s a recreation of a scene from The Rise of Skywalker movie and features the Death Star ruins. From the remnants of the terrifyingly-powerful space station to the steep cliffs and stormy waves, this is one cool idea.
I do wish Minecraft had better physics for things like weather and waves in water, however, as it would allow users to better set the scene for immersive builds like this. But in the meantime, hats off to TrixyBlox for getting creative and using spiderweb blocks to complete the look of the white-capped waves.
The Eiffel Tower
As you’ve probably surmised from this list, one of the most popular build options in Minecraft is the recreation of national monuments This builder, for example, chose France’s iconic Eiffel Tower. While it’s probably not the fanciest version out there, it shows how simpler designs and blocks can still lead to truly gorgeous and detailed results.
An Enormous Elven Treehouse
Trees are one of the most abundant resources in Minecraft, so why not use them to build an epic 1.2 million block mega-treehouse? With its sprawling roots and stems touching the game’s bedrock and height limit (respectively), and the addition of lush leaves, wood-ear mushrooms, and creeping vines, the tree looks nearly as cool as the Hometree in Avatar.
Builder Jeracraft also added on an Elven city and connected the treehouse to it, as a way to extend the fantasy feel, including a long bridge and a variety of detailed Elven buildings. From there, a dose of decor—like lanterns—and some terraforming to fit in the rest of the Elven kingdom. And honestly? I want to go live there.
A Winding Maze
One of the simplest—yet most thrilling—things you can build in the game is a maze. Whether you’re just looking to stump your friends the next time you log on together, or you want to fill it with ferocious monsters and fight through it alongside your friends, mazes are always a sure bet.
For this maze, a flat rectangular space was terraformed inside a forest and lined with hedges. From there, the builder laid out a definitive path from beginning to end, then filled in the walls of the maze with leaves, much like a real hedge maze. They then added a “second” circular maze around the outside of the original maze for a fun 2-in-1 experience!
