Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Guillermo del Toro
Cast
Ivana Baquero,
Maribel Verdú,
Sergi López,
Doug Jones,
Ariadna Gil,
Álex Angulo
Genre
Drama,
Fantasy,
War
Living with her tyrannical stepfather in a new home with her pregnant mother, 10-year-old Ofelia feels alone until she explores a decaying labyrinth guarded by a mysterious faun who claims to know her destiny. If she wishes to return to her real father, Ofelia must complete three terrifying tasks.
My favorite thing about Pan's Labyrinth is the strength and love that Ofelia possesses, making her a loveable child protagonist. However, watching this film as an adult, it is impossible not to draw connections between Ofelia's magical story and the Spanish civil war, which gives the story a much less innocent layer of meaning-- as much as it is a fairy tale, Pan's Labyrinth is also a story of escapism, of a child's desperate attempt at grappling with the trauma inflicted upon her by adults.
Just like an adult fairy tale. The juxtaposition between childlike fantasy and 1940s Fascist Spain makes this film unique, gripping, and hard to look away from. It's truly one of those films I keep coming back to. It's beautifully violent and brilliantly horrifying!
I love the way fantasy is approached from a more artistic lens in this film, especially when the fairytale conflict combines with the political turmoil. Truly feels like entering a Surrealist dreamscape or a myth someone would put on a stained glassed window.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Wilmington
A brilliant work of the imagination capable of truly seizing and igniting our fantasies.
L.A. Weekly by Ella Taylor
Pan's Labyrinth Like his terrific 2001 "The Devil’s Backbone," Mexican horrormeister Guillermo del Toro's new movie offers us both real-life and fantastical monsters, and if you know his work, you won't waste time figuring out which to root for.
Village Voice by J. Hoberman
Literally and figuratively marvelous, a rich, daring mix of fantasy and politics.
Premiere by Glenn Kenny
This intense film, a mix of horror, fantasy, and history that convinces on all those levels and mixes them up with dizzying brio, is a searing cinematic experience, a beautiful, terrifying vision from writer-director Guillermo del Toro.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
This is like no movie you've seen before, a haunting mixture of horror, history and fantasy that works simultaneously on every level.
New York Daily News by Jack Mathews
A critic trots out the word "masterpiece" at his own peril, but there it is.
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
A swift and accessible entertainment, blunt in its power and exquisite in its effects.
San Francisco Chronicle by Ruthe Stein
Visually stunning, it meshes haunting images with a complex multilevel story about the enchantment of youth.
New York Post by Lou Lumenick
Nothing this year comes close to being as utterly unforgettable as Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, an extremely dark and disturbing fairy tale for audiences say, ages 12 and up.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
The result of the intricate interplay is a fairy tale for adults that is violent, sometimes shocking, yet utterly engrossing. And eerily instructive; it deepens our emotional understanding of fascism, and of rigid ideology's dire consequences.
Salon by Stephanie Zacharek
This is a true fairy tale, and one of the finest fantasy pictures ever made, but please do not take your young children to see it unless you want them to be scarred for life.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The lack of family friendliness does not diminish what del Toro has achieved with this magical motion picture.
Variety by Justin Chang
There's plenty of blood -- both literal and figurative -- coursing through the veins of Pan's Labyrinth, a richly imagined and exquisitely violent fantasy from writer-director Guillermo del Toro.
The Hollywood Reporter by Ray Bennett
The performers are all good with Baquero poised and beautiful as Ofelia and Verdu vital and spirited as the rebellious Mercedes. Lopez gives an extraordinary performance as the bestial captain, an irredeemable villain to rank with Ralph Fiennes' Nazi in "Schindler's List."
Newsweek by David Ansen
Suspended between the brutally graphic and flights of lyrical fancy, Pan's Labyrinth unfolds with the confidence of a classical fable, one that paradoxically feels both timeless and startlingly new.
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