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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Pan's Labyrinth

Universal acclaim
Based on 37 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 985 votes
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Fantasy | Foreign | Horror | Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Guillermo del Toro
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 29, 2006
DVD: May 15, 2007
Running Time: 119 minutes, Color
Origin: Mexico / Spain / USA
Language(s): Spanish (with English subtitles)
Summary
RATING: R for graphic violence and some language
Starring Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Ariadna Gil, Doug Jones, Álex Angulo, Roger Casamajor, and César Vea
Guillermo del Toro delivers a unique, richly-imagined epic with Pan's Labyrinth, a gothic fairy tale set against the postwar repression of Franco's Spain.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Blade II Cronos Hellboy Hellboy II: The Golden Army Mimic The Devil's Backbone
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) 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.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly 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.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A brilliant work of the imagination capable of truly seizing and igniting our fantasies.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal 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.
The New York Times A.O. Scott
A swift and accessible entertainment, blunt in its power and exquisite in its effects.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
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."
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
A critic trots out the word "masterpiece" at his own peril, but there it is.
Read Full Review >New York Post 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.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
Visually stunning, it meshes haunting images with a complex multilevel story about the enchantment of youth.
Read Full Review >Premiere 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.
Read Full Review >Village Voice J. Hoberman
Literally and figuratively marvelous, a rich, daring mix of fantasy and politics.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Del Toro never coddles the audience. He means us to leave Pan's Labyrinth shaken to our souls. He succeeds.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
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.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
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.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
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.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
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.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
This is the breakthrough work of one of world cinema's most visionary artists.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
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.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
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.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
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?
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Del Toro presents one dazzling visual spectacle after another.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
With a surgical saw instead of a hatchet, del Toro takes apart patriarchy and opportunistic religion as well as fascism.
Read Full Review >Empire Kim Newman
Dark, twisted and beautiful, this entwines fairy-tale fantasy with war-movie horror to startling effect.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
After two hours of dazzlingly fantastical images and stomach-turning gore, del Toro winds around, and finds his story's center.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Anthony Lane
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.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
The action scenes are exciting, the fantasy scenes are creative and the war scenes are brutal.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
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.
Read Full Review >Salon.com 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.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
The lack of family friendliness does not diminish what del Toro has achieved with this magical motion picture.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Pan's Labyrinth artfully fuses a war film with a family melodrama and a fairy tale. The result is visually stunning and emotionally shattering.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
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.
Read Full Review >Newsweek 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.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter 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."
Read Full Review >Variety 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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 985 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Liz S gave it a10:
Some of the people leaving these ratings are ridiculous... A 5 because it does not deserve all the praise it has gotten.... a 9 because something is missing in the plot.... Simply ridiculous. This movie deserves a 10 in every aspect of cinematography. It is simply perfect and enchanting. It has some much more meaning than most of the films out there playing in theaters at the present moment.
Emeric C gave it a9:
Great movie, great actors. But something's missing in the plot.
Bob N gave it a5:
Have to agree with another rating, this film is a sort of rip from Spirit of the Beehive. Spirit is less entertaining than Pan's, but it is a deeper and more memorable film. Pan's is a good film, but it does not deserve all the praise it has gotten. Over-praised but still decent film. Great ending, but boring story.
Paul D gave it a10:
This may be my favorite movie. I personally interpret the magic / religious elements in the movie as metaphor, although I'm aware of Del Toro's opinion on magic. This film and it's ending are (to me) a profound insight into the human need for religion, the need to believe in life beyond death etc. in a world that is often cruel and without meaning. I'm personally an agnostic but this film gave me a new understanding of the religious mindset. A beautiful film that works on almost every level. Everyone should see it.
meela n gave it a9:
The movie was definitely a dark fairy tale, its really sad and at times scary (when that guy smashed the bottle right into that kids face OMG!) other then the freak horror to it at points, it was an amazing movie, can't say the same for hellboy 2.
Nick G gave it a6:
Trying to balance out the user-score. The movie is violent, but like a previous comment its not Kill Bill like violence, it is cruel and distasteful.
Andrew C. gave it a9:
Would give it a 9.5 if I could but rounding down I go to a '9'. @ Matt C: What movie were you hoping to see when you went and saw this film? I get the feeling you just want to coast through life, movies, and the universe, with nothing taxing your brain throughout the whole safe, bland experience. @ Brian L: I would not call the violence in this movie 'exquisite', but neither do I agree with all your negative inaccuracies about the film. There is horror in this film, to be sure. And it is brutal and shocking - I guarantee you that's how it happened in real life. I hate to break it to you, but humans can be more monstrous than any fantastical creature. In sync and alongside the horrifying way humans treat each other in the film is the fantastical element of the piece. No, it's not Disney - and you seem upset by this. I am not sure what you were expecting but I think you were definitely on the wrong track mate, regarding fairies and what-have-you. The torture scenes were very tastefully done - you barely see anything, but are left with a lot of nasty things to the imagination. You mentioned exploding brains - not a one to be seen - are you mixing this film up with a more mindless horror flick? I graduated from film school. but I am not a 'pro reviewer', as you say: I just see and appreciate the movie for what it is, don't let any preconceived ideas taint my online text. My quick summary of this film - honestly a truly powerful film. A quite stunning blend of brutal history with an seamless injection of fantasy that has to be seen to be understood how effortlessly it entwines into the story. In fact, I don't think I've experienced another film that blends reality and fantasy as seamlessly as this film. The only detraction for me is the ultimate ending, and even this is fine except for certain little things. The 'correct choice' at the end seems rather cliched, in the sense that the film deals with it very quickly and moves on with such speed that it feels we are running out of time. However, apart from that small flaw this film truly is quite incredible. I encourage all of you to watch this film - you probably won't see anything quite as incredible for a few years to come.
