History Awesome / PansLabyrinth

* The ending: [[BigBad Captain Vidal]] is surrounded by rebels while carrying his baby son. Realizing that he would soon be killed, he hands his son to another character, Mercedes, and calmly requests that the child is later told of his heroic exploits. Mercedes cuts him off, stating "No. [[UnPerson He won't even know your name]]." right before her brother, a fellow rebel, draws a pistol and shoots the Captain in the face. Destroying the rebels and passing on his name were the only things Vidal seemed to care about; having the first denied him was bad, but when Mercedes denies him the second, it's really the only time in the film you see him look genuinely upset about something.

* Garcés closing in on Mercedes, relishing the prospect to get his hands on her, and everything looks hopeless. Then, a gunshot. And there's just enough time after the gunshot is heard but before there's any effect to wonder who fired and where it came from, when the whistling bullet hits Garcés in the shoulder. And then the other shoulder. And he just keeps rocking back and forth as he's hit by bullets before one blows his brains out, and '''[[TheCavalry the cavalry]] appears'''.

* Doctor Ferreiro gets a quieter, more subtle one when he euthanizes a captured rebel rather than heal him for more torture, as he was ordered. Vidal asks why the doctor disobeyed, to which the doctor responds: "Because to obey orders just like that, [[ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight for the sake of obeying]]... [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech that is something that only people like you do, Captain]]." [[FaceDeathWithDignity Ferreiro's death immediately afterwards is one of the most beautiful and dignified deaths in cinema.]]

** Complete with the utterly ''awesome'' line: "I'm not an old man! Nor a wounded man, you motherfucker! [[PrecisionFStrike Motherfucker]]... Don't you dare touch the girl. You won't be the first pig I've gutted!" Oh, yes.

* Creator/GuillermoDelToro ''himself'' gets one for giving normally typecast actors a chance to break out. He was under much criticism by several directors in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Spanish]] movie industry for casting many of the actors in roles that apparently did not suit them. One director predicted that the movie would be a huge flop due to his choices in actors, going on to say that: "Obviously you don't know these things because you're Mexican." Del Toro's response? "It's not that I don't know it -- [[BadassBoast it's that I don't give a fuck.]]" When ''Pan's Labyrinth'' premiered (and was subsequently an enormous hit), the Spanish director had no choice but to apologize for his remarks. To be more specific, Sergi Lopez, who played Captain Vidal, had mostly been known for comedic roles. With this film he portrayed one of the most terrifying and evil villains of the 2000s. Likewise, Alex Angulo (Doctor Ferreiro) was known mostly as a comedic actor. The only major exceptions would be Maribel Verdú (Mercedes) and Ariadna Gil (Carmen)
* Another meta example: Creator/DougJones, who played the Faun, does not speak Spanish. So he learned all of his lines phonetically -- and even though he was later overdubbed by Spanish voice actor Pablo Adán, his efforts allow the dubbing to be nearly invisible, rather than the sort of audio-visual mismatch that occurs when words are dubbed into a different language than what the actor was speaking. Furthermore, he had to learn all of Ofelia's lines as well (so he would know when to speak), and was essentially acting while deaf -- the servos in his costume were so loud that he couldn't hear her actress speak.
* Guillermo del Toro sat next to Creator/StephenKing during a showing; in the commentary, he said watching King -- [[NightmareFetishist no stranger to horror]] -- [[HorrifyingTheHorror squirming in his chair]] during the Pale Man scene was akin to winning the [[UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Oscar]].
* This movie got a 22-MINUTE standing ovation when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

* Creator/GuillermoDelToro ''himself'' gets one for giving normally typecast actors a chance to break out. He was under much criticism by several directors in the [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Spanish]] movie industry for casting many of the actors in roles that apparently did not suit them. One director predicted that the movie would be a huge flop due to his choices in actors, going on to say that: "Obviously you don't know these things because you're Mexican." Del Toro's response? "It's not that I don't know it -- [[BadassBoast it's that I don't give a fuck.]]" When ''Pan's Labyrinth'' premiered (and was subsequently an enormous hit), the Spanish director had no choice but to apologize for his remarks. To be more specific, Creator/SergiLopez, who played Captain Vidal, had mostly been known for comedic roles. With this film he portrayed one of the most terrifying and evil villains of the 2000s. Likewise, Creator/AlexAngulo (Doctor Ferreiro) was known mostly as a comedic actor. The only major exceptions would be Maribel Verdú (Mercedes) and Ariadna Gil (Carmen)

* The ending: Captain Vidal, the main villain, is surrounded by rebels while carrying his baby son. Realizing that he would soon be killed, he hands his son to another character, Mercedes, and calmly requests that the child is later told of his heroic exploits. Mercedes cuts him off, stating "No. [[UnPerson He won't even know your name]]." right before her brother, a fellow rebel, draws a pistol and shoots the Captain in the face. Destroying the rebels and passing on his name were the only things Vidal seemed to care about; having the first denied him was bad, but when Mercedes denies him the second, it's really the only time in the film you see him look genuinely upset about something.

** Which sounds more brilliant in the original Spanish, in which she switches her way to address him from formal ''usted'', as due to someone of his rank, to informal ''tú'' (note that this was a BIG deal in the Spain of the 1940s), and she sounds like she's been ''waiting for so long'' to use it to his face and kick him off his pedestal. "¡Yo no soy un viejo, ni un hombre herido, hijo de puta! Hijo de puta... No se te ocurra tocar a la niña. ¡No serás el primer cerdo que deguelle!"

* Garcés closing in on Mercedes, relishing the prospect to get his hands on her, and everything looks hopeless. Then, a gunshot. And there's just enough time after the gunshot is heard but before there's any effect to wonder who fired and where it came from, when the whistling bullet hits Garcés in the shoulder. And then the other shoulder. And he just keeps rocking back and forth as he's hit by bullets before one blows his brains out, and '''[[TheCavalry the fucking cavalry]] appears'''.

* Another meta example: Creator/DougJones, who played the Faun, does not speak Spanish. So he learned all of his lines phonetically -- and even though he was later overdubbed by Spanish voice actor Pablo Adán, his efforts allow the dubbing to be nearly invisible, rather than the sort of audio-visual mismatch that occurs when words are dubbed into a different language. Furthermore, he had to learn all of Ofelia's lines as well (so he would know when to speak), and was essentially acting while deaf -- the servos in his costume were so loud that he couldn't hear her actress speak.