Our take
Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro creates another haunting movie that leaves you questioning your sense of reality. El Orfanato revolves around a mother tries desperately to find her missing adopted son soon after her and her husband move into her old orphanage. But the past horrors of the orphanage will not let her son be found so easily.
Streaming arrival
What it won
Cannes
1 nom
European Film Awards
5 noms
Goya Awards
6 wins · 8 noms
The story
A woman brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage, intent on reopening it. Before long, her son starts to communicate with a new invisible friend.
Elsewhere
"The film is less of a shocker than an adventure in anxiety, testing and twisting some of the classic studies in infantile curiosity."
— Anthony Lane
"Superb. Even the cliche spooky kids are handled with aplomb."
— Neon Kelly
