Film
Pan's Labyrinth
Guillermo del Toro's fable smuggles a horror film inside a fairy tale, and vice versa. A girl escapes a monstrous stepfather into an underground kingdom that offers her tasks, wonder, and dread in equal measure. It's gorgeous, brutal, and unwilling to protect you from either the war outside or the myth inside. Not for children, despite the marketing.
If you liked this
The Devil's Backbone2001
Del Toro's earlier, rougher dry run: an orphanage haunted by a ghost boy during the same Spanish Civil War, with the same instinct for making history and the supernatural bleed into each other.
But Smaller budget, smaller scope — it's the sketch before the painting, and it shows.

Spirited Away2001
A young girl crosses into a spirit world full of beautiful, dangerous creatures and rules she has to learn fast to survive. Same fairy-tale logic, same refusal to soften the strangeness for children.
But Animated and gentler in its violence — if you wanted del Toro's specific gore, this won't give it to you.

The Orphanage2007
Produced by del Toro and drenched in his sensibility: grief, missing children, and a haunted house that might be more honest than the adults living in it.
But A ghost story rather than a war story — the political weight of Pan's Labyrinth is absent.

The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Night of the Hunter1955
Same structural trick: a monstrous father-figure hunting children, filmed with the heightened, symbolic logic of a fable rather than a straight thriller.
A black-and-white American classic where children flee downriver from a preacher-killer as menacing and mythic as Vidal — half thriller, half fairy tale, decades before del Toro made that combination fashionable.
But Its silent-film-influenced style and 1950s pacing will feel alien if you want modern polish.

More like this (8)
Crimson Peak2015
Del Toro doing full gothic melodrama: a decaying mansion, a monstrous marriage, ghosts that are metaphor and menace at once. His visual obsessions in a different key.
But Trades folklore and war for Victorian romance — pulpier, and some find it overwrought.

The Shape of Water2017
Another del Toro fable about an outsider woman and a beautiful monster, set against Cold War paranoia instead of civil war. His tenderness toward creatures again takes center stage.
But Warmer and more romantic than bleak — the ending offers comfort Pan's Labyrinth withholds.

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio2022no page yet
Stop-motion fascism, death, and a wooden boy who won't behave — del Toro turns a children's classic into something as morally serious as his live-action work.
But Animated puppetry may feel like a lower-stakes register even though the themes aren't.
A Monster Calls2016
A grieving boy is visited by a towering, terrifying tree monster who tells him stories that are really about his dying mother. Fantasy as a way of surviving unbearable reality, just like Ofelia's.
But More sentimental and aimed squarely at tear-jerking rather than dread.

Life Is Beautiful1997
A father invents a game to shield his son from the horror of a concentration camp — imagination as armor against history, the same trick Ofelia's fantasies pull off.
But Comic in tone for most of its runtime before it turns; some find that mixture uncomfortable rather than moving.

Bridge to Terabithia2007
Two kids build an imaginary kingdom in the woods to escape home troubles — a gentler cousin to Ofelia's labyrinth, with real loss underneath the whimsy.
But Aimed at a much younger audience and lacks any of the political or bodily horror.

Persepolis2007
Both use a child's perspective and a fantastical visual language to process a country tearing itself apart, letting imagination carry the weight history can't.
An animated, black-and-white memoir of growing up during the Iranian Revolution, where a child's imagination and humor keep pushing back against encroaching authoritarian violence.
But No literal magic here — the fantasy is only ever memory and drawing style, which some may find less immersive.

Labyrinth1986
The same bones — a girl, a labyrinth, an ambiguous otherworldly guide, a series of trials — played completely straight for wonder instead of terror, proving how far tone can bend the exact same shape.
A teenage girl enters a literal labyrinth ruled by a dangerous, seductive fantastical figure (David Bowie's Goblin King) to complete tasks and rescue someone she loves — pure 80s puppet-and-glitter fantasy.
But Deliberately campy and musical, with none of the historical horror or genuine peril — it's comfort food, not dread.

People
Cast
Ivana BaqueroOfelia
Sergi LópezCapitán Vidal
Maribel VerdúMercedes
Doug JonesFauno / Pale Man
Ariadna GilCarmen- Álex AnguloDr. Ferreiro
Roger CasamajorPedro
Manolo SoloGarcés
César VeaSerrano
Ivan MassaguéEl Tarta
Gonzalo UriarteFrancés
Eusebio LázaroPadre
Directing
- Guillermo del ToroDirector
- Jorge CalvoFirst Assistant Director (Prep)
- Carmen SorianoScript Supervisor
- Borja GrandíoSecond Assistant Director
- Karin MarzocchiniThird Assistant Director
Writing
- Guillermo del ToroWriter
Production
- David EbnerAssociate Producer
- David EbnerAssociate Producer
- Sara BilbatúaCasting
- Cristina PeralesCasting Assistant
- Cristina PeralesCasting Assistant
- Edmundo GilCo-Executive Producer
- Belén AtienzaExecutive Producer
- Elena ManriqueExecutive Producer
- O.D. WelchExecutive Producer
- Víctor AlbarránLine Producer
- Barbara AllegueLocation Assistant
- Pedro LozanoPost Production Coordinator
- Alfonso CuarónProducer
- Álvaro AugustínProducer
- Bertha NavarroProducer
- Frida TorresblancoProducer
- Guillermo del ToroProducer
- David EbnerProduction Executive
- Jeff BarnesProduction Executive
- Vivien QuetglasProduction Secretary
- George NicholisPublicist
- Sally SteelePublicist
- Víctor AlbarránUnit Production Manager
Recommended by
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Spirited Away, Labyrinth, The Shape of Water, The Spirit of the Beehive, Crimson Peak, It, Stardust, Shrek, Encanto, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Coco, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, How to Train Your Dragon, The Orphanage, Kwaidan, The Wizard of Oz, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Box of Delights, The Chronicles of Narnia, Edward Scissorhands, A Monster Calls, His Dark Materials, Cinderella, The Green Knight, EverAfter, Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Legend of Korra, Lee Cronin's The Mummy, The Devil's Backbone, Anne with an E, X2, Ivan's Childhood, Forbidden Games, The Book of Life, The White Ribbon, Peter Pan, Ratcatcher, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Hellboy, Fanny and Alexander, The Golem: How He Came into the World, Beauty and the Beast