The Devil's Backbone(2001)
What is a ghost?
Spain, 1939. In the last days of the Spanish Civil War, the young Carlos arrives at the Santa Lucía orphanage, where he will make friends and enemies as he follows the quiet footsteps of a mysterious presence eager for revenge.
Movie: The Devil's Backbone
Top 10 Billed Cast
Carmen
Jacinto
Dr. Casares
Carlos
Jaime
Conchita
Marcelo
'El Puerco'
Santi
Alma
Video Trailer The Devil's Backbone
Video: Trailer
Trailer
Excerpt
Mark Kermode reviews Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone | BFI Player
THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE – Guillermo del Toro’s creative resurrection | MUBI Podcast
Three Reasons
All 5 videos
Trailer - Trailer
Excerpt - Clip
Mark Kermode reviews Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone | BFI Player - Featurette
THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE – Guillermo del Toro’s creative resurrection | MUBI Podcast - Featurette
Three Reasons - Featurette
Recommendations Movies
The Endless Trench(es)
A small village in Huelva, Andalusia, Spain, 1936. Higinio and Rosa have been married only for a few months when the Civil War breaks out. Higinio, being afraid of possible reprisals from the rebel faction, decides to use a hole dug in his own house as a temporary hideout.
Pan's Labyrinth(es)
In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.
Butterfly(es)
The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.
The Orphanage(es)
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.
32 Malasana Street(es)
Malasaña neighborhood, Madrid, Spain, 1976. While political turmoil ravages the streets all over the country, the Olmedo family arrives in the big city and settles into their new apartment. They soon discover that they are not the only ones roaming its corridors.
The Skin I Live In(es)
A brilliant plastic surgeon creates a synthetic skin that withstands any kind of damage. His guinea pig: a mysterious and volatile woman who holds the key to his obsession.
The Photographer of Mauthausen(es)
Spanish photographer Francesc Boix, imprisoned in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, works in the SS Photographic Service. Between 1943 and 1945, he hides, with the help of other prisoners, thousands of negatives, with the purpose of showing the freed world the atrocities committed by the Nazis, exhaustively documented. He will be a key witness during the Nuremberg Trials.
Behold a Pale Horse(en)
Manuel Artiguez, a famous bandit during the Spanish civil war, has lived in French exile for 20 years. When his mother is dying he considers visiting her secretly in his Spanish home town. But his biggest enemy, the Spanish police officer Vinolas, prepared a trap at the hospital as a chance to finally catch Artiguez.
Bird Box Barcelona(es)
After a mysterious force decimates the world’s population, Sebastian must navigate his own survival journey through the desolate streets of Barcelona. As he forms uneasy alliances with other survivors and they try to escape the city, an unexpected and even more sinister threat grows.
Tigers Are Not Afraid(es)
When her mother suddenly disappears with no one to care for her, young Estrella ends up on the street and joins a gang of children, triggering a dangerous and tragic chain of events.
Operation Ogre(es)
Spain, 1973. Dictator Francisco Franco has ruled the country since 1939 with an iron fist; but he is now a very old and sick man. The future of the weakened regime is in danger. Admiral Carrero Blanco is his natural successor. The Basque terrorist gang ETA decides that he must die to prevent the dictatorship from continuing.
The Wait(es)
Eladio, hunting estate keeper, takes a bribe from a veteran hunter. Weeks later, his whole life falls apart. What looked like the opportunity of a lifetime, turns into a macabre descent to hell when he finds out that his misfortune might not be entirely by chance.
Ghost Story(en)
Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old secret. When one of Edward Wanderley's twin sons dies in a bizarre accident, the group begins to see a pattern of frightening events developing.
Sister Death(es)
Spain, 1949. Narcisa, a novice, arrives at an old convent, converted into a girls' school, to work as a teacher.
Goodbye(es)
Seville, Spain. Juan Santos, a convicted petty criminal, gets out of jail for a day to celebrate with Triana, his wife, the first communion of their daughter Estrella.
Adú(es)
In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.
Castle Freak(en)
John Reilly discovers that his family's newly inherited castle in Italy is haunted by a relentless, bloodthirsty creature.
Before I Wake(en)
An orphaned child's dreams—and nightmares—manifest physically as he sleeps.
Similar Movies
Casper's Scare School(en)
When Casper's been being friendly lately even when playing with a boy named Jimmy, Kibosh: The King of the Underworld has Casper enrolled into a Scare School headed by the two-headed headmaster Alder and Dash. He befriends Ra, a mummy with unraveling issues and Mantha, a zombie girl who keeps falling apart. When Casper discovers the two-headed headmaster's plot to use a petrification potion to turn Kibosh into stone and take over the Underworld and Deedstown, he and his new friends must stop him.
Der Richter von Zalamea(de)
Historical drama set during the reign of Philip II of Spain. The royal troops have taken up quarters in the village of Zalamea. Captain Don Alvaro is staying with the farmer Pedro Crespo. His daughter Isabel behaves very coldly and dismissively toward the captain, which irritates him. Finally, he takes her by force and humiliates her father. The captain is put on trial in the village. Pedro is appointed judge and, despite all the threats from General de Lope, sentences the captain to death. De Lope then wants to deny him his judicial authority. Surprisingly, King Philip II appears in the village and confirms the harsh sentence, but wants to pardon the offender. However, the sentence has already been carried out.
Horror Express(en)
Mysterious and unearthly deaths start to occur while Professor Saxton is transporting the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature he found in Manchuria back to Europe.
Revenge of the Dead(en)
Reports of strange activities out by the Old Willow's place signal new adventures for Kelton the Cop & Co. An apparent mystic, Dr. Acula is engaging in rituals designed to raise the dead. But he may get more than he bargained for...
Sacrilege(en)
Carefree and desperate to avoid any responsibility, Jessica, a college student, visits a yard sale to buy a gift for her best friend. However, the music box she brings home is haunted by a vicious demonic entity eager to feed off the lives of all who hear the box's melody. After her best friend takes her own life, Jessica seeks the aid of two ghost hunters, but they too find themselves out of their depth. Desperate to free herself of the cursed box, she searches for the box's origin only to find that true evil begins with best of intentions.
Solomon Kane(en)
A nomadic 16th century warrior, condemned to hell for his brutal past, seeks redemption by renouncing violence, but finds some things are worth burning for as he fights to free a young Puritan woman from the grip of evil.
The Boys of St. Vincent(en)
The true story of boys being sexually abused at their orphanage, run by a religious community in Newfoundland.
Rambling Rose(en)
In the Deep South of the 1930s, Rose is taken in by the Hillyer family to serve as housemaid so that she can avoid falling into a life of prostitution. Her appearence and personality is such that all men fall for her, and she knows it. She can't help herself from getting into trouble with men.
Ju-on: The Curse(ja)
When elementary school teacher Kobayashi investigates the absence of one of his young pupils from the classroom, he finds himself at the doorstep of an anonymous suburban house that harbours a horrible secret, and into which all who enter are doomed.
Cradle Will Rock(en)
A true story of politics and art in the 1930s USA, centered around a leftist musical drama and attempts to stop its production.
Premiere i helvede(da)
About an American's reaction to the Dane's way of chatting about each other. Behind their backs. A rumor begins to flourish. A serious one. About death. perhaps even murder.
Lonesome Ghosts(en)
On a dark and stormy night, four bored ghosts decide to have some fun by calling the Ajax Ghost Exterminators.
The Beacon(en)
While trying to get their lives back on track after the loss of their four year old son, Bryn and Paul Shaw move to the charming old Beacon Apartments. Bryn begins seeing a ghostly little boy skulking around the building. With the help of an eccentric young professor and a tough old beat cop, Bryn tries to uncover the details of the boy's death.
You Alone(es)
In their spare time, after their studies or their work, children and adolescents between the ages of eight and sixteen meet at the School of Bullfighting in Madrid to learn the Art of Cúchares: Torear. In their stomachs there is no hunger as in the past, their dreams do not lie in having a farmhouse and being famous. Their only dreams are to be in front of a bull, animal with which death goes, fact of which they are fully aware, as their teachers continually remind them. These, retired bullfighters, some by age, others by force and all with their bodies full of scars produced by the horns of a bull. The nude bullfighting scene is fascinating without being exploitive, and it serves as an analogy for the vulnerability these young bullfighters have when in the ring with the bulls.
Beloved(en)
After Paul D. finds his old slave friend Sethe in Ohio and moves in with her and her daughter Denver, a strange girl comes along by the name of "Beloved". Sethe and Denver take her in and then strange things start to happen...
The Strange Door(en)
The wicked Alain plots an elaborate revenge against his younger brother Edmund, leading to a deadly confrontation in his dungeon deathtrap.
Casper: A Spirited Beginning(en)
Before he met and befriended the other ghouls at Applegate Manor, friendly ghost Casper meets young Chris Carson, a lonely kid who decides to teach Casper how to be a proper ghost.
Demi-Haunted(cn)
Wan Fei (Joey Yung) is a promising Chinese Opera singer who is secretly in love with Ho Fung (Nicholas Tse). She plans to sing for him from the stage, but, in a tragic accident, dies mid-song. Years later, Wan Fei's ghost returns, and finds that part of her spirit has been reincarnated in the form of Chor-bat (Eason Chan). Wan Fei still longs to sing her song for her lover, and, after much humorous confusion, her dream is fulfilled.