The 1986 fantasy film starring David Bowie as the Goblin King is Labyrinth. Bowie plays Jareth, the enigmatic ruler of the goblins, while Jennifer Connelly plays Sarah, a teenager who must navigate a magical maze to rescue her baby half-brother, Toby.
Directed by Jim Henson, Labyrinth combines elaborate puppetry, practical creature effects, music, dance, and fairy-tale storytelling. Terry Jones of Monty Python wrote the screenplay from a story developed by Henson and Dennis Lee, and George Lucas served as executive producer. Bowie also wrote and performed several songs for the film, including “Magic Dance.”
Labyrinth is sometimes mixed up with The Dark Crystal, another Henson fantasy, or Legend, a 1985 fantasy starring Tom Cruise. Those films have different stories and casts. Although Labyrinth received mixed reviews and was not an immediate box-office success, its imaginative creatures, distinctive production design, and Bowie’s performance helped it become a long-standing cult favorite.