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Pan's Labyrinth
Metascore
98 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 37 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 37 out of 37
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 37
  3. Negative: 0 out of 37
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  1. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    100
    Del Toro never coddles the audience. He means us to leave Pan's Labyrinth shaken to our souls. He succeeds.
  2. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    One of the greatest of all fantasy films.
  3. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Wilmington
    100
    A brilliant work of the imagination capable of truly seizing and igniting our fantasies.
  4. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    100
    It leaves you feeling exhilarated at the invigorating power a well-told story, no matter its subject, can have. If you like Harry Potter, you will love this movie. If you don't like Harry Potter, you will still love this movie.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    100
    A critic trots out the word "masterpiece" at his own peril, but there it is.
  6. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Lou Lumenick
    100
    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.
  7. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Carrie Rickey
    100
    This is the breakthrough work of one of world cinema's most visionary artists.
  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Ruthe Stein
    100
    Visually stunning, it meshes haunting images with a complex multilevel story about the enchantment of youth.
  9. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    100
    Del Toro's film ranks with the best examinations of children's inner lives, but be warned: Its haunting insights are best left to adults.
  10. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    100
    Pan's Labyrinth is a transcendent work of art.
  11. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    100
    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.
  12. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Liam Lacey
    100
    This is like no movie you've seen before, a haunting mixture of horror, history and fantasy that works simultaneously on every level.
  13. Charlotte Observer
    Reviewed by: Lawrence Toppman
    100
    We don't find out until the last scene how reality and fantasy intersect, when the meaning of the first shot of the film gets driven home. How many movies have you seen with a payoff like that?
  14. Empire
    Reviewed by: Kim Newman
    100
    Dark, twisted and beautiful, this entwines fairy-tale fantasy with war-movie horror to startling effect.
  15. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    100
    These creatures of the underworld are the fervid fabrications of del Toro's imagination: More than once they will catch you by surprise and make you gasp.
  16. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    100
    Like any great myth, Pan's Labyrinth encodes its messages through displays of magic. And like any good fairy tale, it is also embroidered with threads of death and loss.
  17. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    100
    In tone, Pan's Labyrinth resembles a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and H.P. Lovecraft, with some Buñuel thrown in for good measure. It is a tribute to - as well as a prime example of - the disturbing power of imagination.
  18. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    100
    Del Toro presents one dazzling visual spectacle after another.
  19. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: Sean Axmaker
    100
    Like the folk tales from centuries past, Pan's Labyrinth is a dark odyssey with nightmarish visions and cruel threats, but coming through the sacrifice and suffering is the childlike belief in magic and imagination that for Del Toro represents the hope and optimism of a happily ever after in this cruel world.
  20. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    100
    With a surgical saw instead of a hatchet, del Toro takes apart patriarchy and opportunistic religion as well as fascism.
  21. L.A. Weekly
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    100
    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.
  22. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: J. Hoberman
    100
    Literally and figuratively marvelous, a rich, daring mix of fantasy and politics.
  23. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: A.O. Scott
    100
    A swift and accessible entertainment, blunt in its power and exquisite in its effects.
  24. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    100
    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.
    All this critic's reviews
  25. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    100
    With this film, del Toro seems to have created his manifesto, a tour de force of cautionary zeal, humanism and magic. At this writing, Pan's Labyrinth is the best-reviewed film of 2006 listed on the movie review Web site Metacritic.com, and for a reason: It's just that great.
  26. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Jonathan Rosenbaum
    100
    Unlike most horror movies, this chiller gives equal prominence to reality and fantasy, though the reality is far more frightening. The only precedent that comes to mind in terms of a lyrical treatment of a child's experience of terror is "The Night of the Hunter."
  27. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Noel Murray
    91
    After two hours of dazzlingly fantastical images and stomach-turning gore, del Toro winds around, and finds his story's center.
  28. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Don R. Lewis
    90
    The action scenes are exciting, the fantasy scenes are creative and the war scenes are brutal.
  29. Salon.com
    Reviewed by: Stephanie Zacharek
    90
    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.
  30. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Kenneth Turan
    90
    With Pan's Labyrinth, Del Toro has made his most accomplished film to date, a dark and disturbing fairy tale for adults that's been thought out to the nth degree and resonates with the irresistible inevitability of a timeless myth.
  31. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: Anthony Lane
    90
    So smartly has del Toro thought his fable through, and so graceful is his grasp of visual rhyme, that to pick holes in it seems mean; yet Pan's Labyrinth is perhaps more dazzling than involving--I was too busy reading its runes and clues, as it were, to be swept away. It is, I suspect, a film to return to, like a country waiting to be explored: a maze of dead ends and new life.
  32. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    88
    Pan's Labyrinth artfully fuses a war film with a family melodrama and a fairy tale. The result is visually stunning and emotionally shattering.
  33. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    88
    The lack of family friendliness does not diminish what del Toro has achieved with this magical motion picture.
  34. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Ray Bennett
    80
    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."
  35. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    80
    His palette here is deep-toned, with bottomless blacks and supersaturated oranges and blues--as if the Walt Disney of "Pinocchio" had collaborated with Goya.
  36. Newsweek
    Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    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.
  37. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    80
    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.
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User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
8.4 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 1242 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 487 out of 611
  2. Mixed: 47 out of 611
  3. Negative: 77 out of 611
  1. grandpajoe6191
    9
    With gruesome but beautiful visuals by my favorite director Guillermo Del Toro, "Pan's Labyrinth" is a deep, profound, and sad fairy tale that appeals to the audience of every age, presenting such maturity into the screen.… Full Review »
  2. KevinC.
    10
    A fantastic movie, easily one of my favorites. Visually stunning, I found that the violence perfectly underscored the horrors of war, especially those horrors having been seen through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl. Some may say that the characters were underdeveloped, with Mercedes adopting the "Good Guy" and the Captain being the classic villian archtype, but one must remember that this is a story seen through the eyes of a young girl. All adults, to children, are either good, or bad. And to the people griping about the film being unsuitable for children, well, it's rated R for a reason.… Full Review »
  3. Treblotski
    10
    Epic alternative view of the Spanish civil war - from the mind of a child driven basically psychotic by her environment. I love this friggin piece of art.… Full Review »
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