Big Screen Classics: Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

"Bewitchingly bonkers."

— Nigel Andrews, Financial Times

"A transcendent work of art."

— Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe

"It's not only one of the great fantasy pictures but one of the great end-of-childhood elegies."

— Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com

"Dark, twisted and beautiful, this entwines fairy-tale fantasy with war-movie horror to startling effect."

— Kim Newman, Empire Magazine

"Watching the unique explosions of Guillermo del Toro's mind realise themselves on screen is truly astounding."

— Helen Cowley, Little White Lies

"Pan's Labyrinth is del Toro's home run. He's delivered a film full of power, beauty, horror and, ultimately, sadness."

— Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"The story is a compelling and deeply involving one, and the film is both beautiful, exciting, and sometimes horrifying. The creature effects are superbly handled."

— David Stratton, At the Movies (Australia)

"The movie is that original, and that attuned to the power of myth. I don't see why it shouldn't sit on the same altar of High Fantasy as the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- it's that worthy."

— Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

"Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years."

— David Germain, Associated Press

"In coming up with one of the finest modern fantasies to date, del Toro seamlessly blends two stories, one set in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War and the other in a parallel realm of fairies and fauns."

— Bill Muller, Arizona Republic

"Pan's Labyrinth resembles a cross between Alice in Wonderland and H.P. Lovecraft, with some Buñuel thrown in for good measure. It's a tribute to -- as well as a prime example of -- the disturbing power of imagination."

— Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor

"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."

— Glenn Kenny, Premiere

"So breathtaking in its artistic ambition, so technically accomplished, so morally expansive, so fully realized that it defies the usual critical blather. See it, and celebrate that rare occasion when a director has the audacity to commit cinema."

— Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

"This is a somber, lovely picture, set in Franco's Spain a few years after that country's civil war. It's rich both in metaphorical terms and in literal ones. Del Toro's imagery is so vivid and concrete that it's likely to change the color of your sleep."

— Stephanie Zacharek, Salon

"One of the best films ever made from a child's perspective, not least because it refuses to infantilize the audience. Is this deeply entrancing movie a historical war drama, a gothic horror-fantasy, or both? Remarkably, Del Toro doesn't say. Instead he casts us headlong into a world where the evils of fascism have many faces, and where historical trauma runs so deep that it takes on the power of myth."

— Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

"Magic realism leavened with moral seriousness, Pan's Labyrinth belongs with a handful of classic movie fantasies: Orphée, The Night of the Hunter, The Company of Wolves. Its key precursor, however, may be the greatest of Franco-era Spanish movies, The Spirit of the Beehive. Although utterly different types of filmmaking, each of these is the story of a brave little girl lost in a world of make-believe—at once an intuitive anti-fascist and the innocent victim of a monstrous system."

— J. Hoberman, The Village Voice