What It's About:

As the Spanish Civil War draws to a close, 12-year-old Ofelia (Baquero) moves with her pregnant mother, Carmen (Gil), and new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Lopez), a sadistic officer in Franco’s army, to a woodland farmhouse. There, Ofelia wanders into an old garden labyrinth and meets a magical faun (Doug Jones) who promises a kingdom if she can prove herself worthy. 

Why I Love It:

This dark, phantasmagoric fairy tale by the Mexican director of "Devil's Backbone" weds the Brothers Grimm and Gabriel Garcia Marquez with a heady dose of political intrigue, all seen through the eyes of a child whose fantasy life is her sole escape from barbarous reality. Del Toro doesn't stint on gruesome violence, and his fantasy sequences are rather unsettling, too, but it's all in the service of an anti-fascist allegory that will appeal to the wide-eyed child in each of us.