The most personal film by Guillermo del Toro is also among his most frightening and emotionally layered. Set during the final week of the Spanish Civil War, The tale of a ten-year-old boy who, after his freedom-fighting father is killed, is sent to a haunted rural orphanage full of terrible secrets. Del Toro effectively combines gothic ghost story, murder mystery, and historical melodrama in a stylish concoction that reminds us that the scariest monsters...

Only dimly aware of the shadow of World War II somewhere beyond the Castilian plateau, sisters Isabel and Ana must occupy themselves as their preoccupied scientist father and isolated, languishing mother move in their solitary orbits. After attending the screening of James Whale's "Frankenstein" at a makeshift movie theater in town, Ana becomes obsessed with the idea of befriending the imaginary monster. Largely wordless, the film functions as a striking...