Best Maze Movies: Eleven A-Maze-ing Films

The average person will only ever encounter a maze in the pages of a puzzle book, where they will solve it using a pencil and eraser. In movies, a labyrinth often poses a more dangerous threat. High walls, demons around every corner, riddles to solve and time running out, the image of a hero trapped in a maze has imbued films with suspense and thrills long before The Maze Runner movies ever came out, and will continue to do so long afterwards. The image endures, the metaphor lives on, and the struggle will never cease to fascinate in these maze movies.

So join us as we run down our list of the best maze movies ever produced, and lose ourselves in their twists and turns.

The Best Maze Movies of All Time

Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

Steve Beck’s remake of William Castle’s classic spook story has a pretty dumb plot about collecting the souls of over-the-top ghost archetypes (a spurned cheerleader, a serial killer, etc.) and shoving them into a maze, but it earns a spot on our list of the best maze movies for having a really awesome maze.
Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

In the film, Tony Shalhoub, Matthew Lillard and Shannon Elizabeth (and several others) get stuck in a glass labyrinth with ancient runes scratched into the window panes. Sometimes the glass keeps the ghosts out, sometimes the glass chops you in half.
Thir13en Ghosts (2001)

It’s silly and violent, but Thir13en Ghosts manages to be pretty entertaining, thanks in part to clever dialogue contributed by an uncredited James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy).
The Maze (1953)

William Cameron Menzies was an imaginative production designer and a prolific director whose work largely doesn’t get enough acclaim nowadays. It’s hard to watch films like Invaders from Mars and, more to the point, The Maze without acknowledging Menzies as an early visual dynamist on par with Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton.
The Maze (1953)

The plot of this gothic drama is a Lovecraftian tale, in which a free-spirited socialite (Richard Carlson, from The Creature from the Black Lagoon) inherits a Scotch estate, complete with a mysterious maze, and immediately breaks off his engagement and secludes himself within its horrific walls.
The Maze (1953)

The plot goes somewhere pretty darned ludicrous by the end, but before that the atmosphere oozes from every corner, making The Maze well worth exploring and worth of inclusion among the best maze movies of all time.
The Maze Runner (2014)

James Dashner’s popular young adult novels made a successful transition to the big screen with The Maze Runner, a sci-fi thriller that’s a little Lord of the Flies and a heck of a lot of Lost.
The Maze Runner (2014)

Dylan O’Brien stars as the latest in a long line of teenage amnesiacs to awaken in the center of a giant labyrinth which opens during the day, closes at night, and teams with giant cyborg spider monsters.
The Maze Runner (2014)

A solid cast, fun mysteries and exciting action make up for mostly one-dimensional characters and a climactic sequel tease that’s so over the top it’s laughable.
Cube (1997)

A group of complete strangers awakens in a giant cube, covered in doors to other cubes, which are covered to doors in other cubes. Many of those other cubes are full of deadly booby traps, and nobody knows why they’re there, or why this geometric monstrosity was built in the first place. They just know they have to get out before they die of dehydration or kill each other.
Cube (1997)

An impossibly simple concept (and the epitome of low-budget sci-fi filmmaking) makes for an intense high concept thriller from director Vincenzo Natali, which spawned multiple sequels.
Cube (1997)

The original Cube, though, is definitely the one that deserves a spot among the best maze movies.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

The underrated sequel to Clive Barker’s Hellraiser finds the original film’s lone survivor trapped in a mental institution, and eventually crawling through Hell itself, imagined here as a vile labyrinth filled with monsters.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

The eery production design and grotesque gore effects are in the service of a genuinely creepy storyline, which deftly builds on the mythology of the original Hellraiser and follows the events of the first film to their logical, maddening conclusions.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

And of course, the image of Hell as an inescapable series of torture chambers, filled with your nightmares, is an enduring allegory for madness, guilt, shame and misery.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

The fourth film in the Harry Potter series is one of the best, fleshing out J.K. Rowling’s magical world and pitting the title character against a series of elaborate challenges, like dueling a fire-breathing dragon and navigating a perilous hedge maze.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

The vines have a mind of their own, and every turn seems to force Harry in confrontation with more mystical monsters. It ends with one heck of a showdown, and one of the most shockingly emotional moments of the franchise, and plot twists that make no sense whatsoever.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

But by the time you’re four films into the Harry Potter series, you’re probably willing to forgive little things like the fact that there’s no reason whatsoever why Harry had to enter the Tri-Wizard Tournament in the first place.
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth turns magical children’s literature right on its head, then watches the blood drain out. Ivana Baquero stars as Ofelia, a young girl who defies her disturbingly violent stepfather in Francoist Spain by fleeing into a labyrinth of magical adventure.
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

But this is no escapist fantasy; all of the magic and monsters are shocking grotesqueries that force Ofelia to confront her father and put her in more danger than ever.
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Pan’s Labyrinth is a haunting foray into power of childish imagination.
Dark City (1998)

This atmospheric sci-fi classic from Alex Proyas (The Crow) imagines a world permanently shrouded in darkness, where the inhabitants of a mysterious city repeatedly fall asleep and wake up with new identities, and are incapable of ever leaving the confines of their metropolis.
Dark City (1998)

When one man finds himself unable to fall asleep, and witnesses the otherworldly horrors befalling the rest of the hapless citizens, he tries to solve the dark city’s mysteries. And of course, he discovers that he too is just a rat in a maze.
Dark City (1998)

Brimming with foreboding gloom, the wonders of Dark City only start to come together when you realize that the heroes probably have no power, because they are incapable of seeing the bigger picture.
Labyrinth (1986)

Jim Henson’s impish fairy tale, a box office dud on its original release, has since earned its rightful place as a slumber party staple.
Labyrinth (1986)

Jennifer Connelly stars as a teenager who wishes her infant brother way, only to find her wish granted by The Goblin King, played by an incredibly codpieced David Bowie, who dances with puppets and tortures/seduces our young heroine with dreams and paradoxes.
Labyrinth (1986)

All the while she wiles her way into the center of Bowie’s labyrinth, solving puzzles, gaining new friends, and ultimately coming of age.
Inception (2010)

Christopher Nolan’s thrilling motion picture puzzle takes place largely inside the human mind, a place which anyone will tell you is full of wrong turns and baffling inconsistencies.
Inception (2010)

So when the time comes to design those inconsistencies, in the pursuit of instilling an idea inside of a wealthy businessman’s brain, Nolan busts out every boggling concept he can think of.
Inception (2010)

Stairs that loop in on themselves, cities that fold in half, dreams within dreams within dreams, all of them exciting, and all of them nearly impossible to solve. Nearly.
The Shining (1980)

Some films focus on the maze itself. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, even though it features one hell of a hedge maze in one hell of a finale, is more about the minotaur.
The Shining (1980)

A family is hired to live in the isolated Overlook Hotel during the winter season, only to discover that they are trapped within its haunted walls, with a patriarch (a truly psychotic Jack Nicholson) who wants them dead.
The Shining (1980)

Wheeling through the ethereal hallways, locking themselves in rooms, and ultimately journeying into the frigid labyrinth, pursued by the beast, the Torrance family feels the terror of being locked in a maze more than any other protagonist in movie history. That's why it gets the top spot on our list of the best maze movies of all time.