'The Labyrinth of the Faun') is a 2006 Spanish-Mexican[2] dark fantasy film[5][6][7] written, directed and co-produced by Guillermo del Toro.

The film stars Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil.

It addresses and continues themes related to his 2001 film The Devil's Backbone,[9] to which Pan's Labyrinth is a spiritual successor, according to del Toro in his director's DVD commentary.

It garnered widespread critical acclaim, with praise towards its visual and makeup effects, direction, screenplay, cinematography, musical score, set design, and cast performances.

In a fairy tale, Princess Moanna, whose father is the king of the underworld, visits the human world, where the sunlight blinds her and erases her memory.

In 1944 Francoist Spain, ten-year-old Ofelia travels with her pregnant mother Carmen to meet Captain Vidal, her new stepfather.

He gives her a book and tells her she will find in it three tasks to complete in order for her to acquire immortality and return to her kingdom.

Ofelia completes the first task — retrieving a key from the belly of a giant toad — but becomes worried about her mother, whose condition is worsening.

Accompanied by three fairy guides and equipped with a piece of magic chalk, Ofelia then completes the second task — retrieving a dagger from the lair of the Pale Man, a child-eating monster.

The faun, having changed his mind about giving Ofelia a chance to perform the third task, returns and tells her to bring her newborn brother into the labyrinth to complete it.

The epilogue completes the tale of Princess Moanna, stating that she returned to the Underworld, ruled with kindness and justice for many centuries, and left little traces of her time in the human realm, "visible only to those who know where to look."

Though he originally wrote a story about a pregnant woman who falls in love with a faun,[20] Sergi López said that del Toro described the final version of the plot a year and a half before filming.

But in the end, the faun was altered into a goat-faced creature almost completely made out of earth, moss, vines, and tree bark.

Del Toro has said the film has strong connections in theme to The Devil's Backbone and should be seen as an informal sequel dealing with some of the issues raised there.

Fernando Tielve and Íñigo Garcés, who played the protagonists of The Devil's Backbone, make cameo appearances as unnamed guerrilla soldiers in Pan's Labyrinth.

Some of my favourite writers (Borges, Blackwood, Machen, Dunsany) have explored the figure of the god Pan and the symbol of the labyrinth.

[24] Del Toro wanted to include a fairy tale about a dragon for Ofelia to narrate to her unborn brother.

The tale involved the dragon, named Varanium Silex, who guarded a mountain surrounded by thorns, but at its peak is a blue rose that can grant immortality.

Guillermo Navarro, the director of photography, said that "after doing work in Hollywood on other movies and with other directors, working in our original language in different scenery brings me back to the original reasons I wanted to make movies, which is basically to tell stories with complete freedom and to let the visuals really contribute to the telling of the story".

The Faun's flapping ears and blinking eyes were remotely operated by David Martí and Xavi Bastida from DDT Efectos Especiales while on set.

[citation needed] A bout of weight loss on del Toro's part inspired the physical appearance of the saggy-skinned Pale Man.

High-definition versions of Pan's Labyrinth were released in December 2007 on both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats.

[36][37] In October 2016, The Criterion Collection re-released the film on Blu-ray in the US, based on a newly graded 2K digital master supervised by del Toro.

The site's consensus reads "Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable.

Mark Kermode, in The Observer, labeled Pan's Labyrinth the best film of 2006, describing it as "an epic, poetic vision in which the grim realities of war are matched and mirrored by a descent into an underworld populated by fearsomely beautiful monsters".

[45] Stephanie Zacharek wrote that the film "works on so many levels that it seems to change shape even as you watch it",[46] and Jim Emerson of Chicago Sun-Times called it "a fairy tale of such potency and awesome beauty that it reconnects the adult imagination to the primal thrill and horror of the stories that held us spellbound as children".

[48] The New Yorker's Anthony Lane took special note of the film's sound design, saying it "discards any hint of the ethereal by turning up the volume on small, supercharged noises".

[49] Writing for The San Diego Union-Tribune, David Elliott was more mixed on the film, opining that "the excitement is tangible" but "what it lacks is successful unity ... Del Toro has the art of many parts, but only makes them cohere as a sort of fevered extravaganza".

Doug Cummings (Film Journey 2007) identifies the connection between Cria Cuervos, Spirit of the Beehive and Pan's Labyrinth: "Critics have been summarily referencing Spirit of the Beehive (1973) in reviews of Pan's Labyrinth, but Saura's film–at once a sister work to Erice's classic in theme, tone, even shared actress (Ana Torrent)–is no less rich a reference point.

"[71] In fact, del Toro was asked to direct The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe but turned it down for Pan's Labyrinth.