Dean Spanley is a 2008 British comedy drama film, with fantastic elements, directed by Fijian New Zealander Toa Fraser. Set in Edwardian England, the film is based on an Alan Sharp adaptation of Irish author Lord Dunsany's 1936 novella My Talks with Dean Spanley. It stars Sam Neill as the Dean, Jeremy Northam and Peter O'Toole as Fisk Junior and Fisk Senior respectively and Bryan Brown as Wrather.

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany,, commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consisted of hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, and essays. He gained a name in the 1910s as a great writer in the English-speaking world. Best known today are the 1924 fantasy novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter, and his first book, The Gods of Pegāna, which depicts a fictional pantheon. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre.