Plot
In a faraway land, there were two kingdoms. One was ruled by the ruthless King Henry, while the other - known as the Moors - was home to magical creatures and fairies, whom had no ruler due to their intensely close friendship and trust in one another. The strongest and most powerful fairy of all was named Maleficent.
One day, the Moors was disturbed by the presence of a young peasant boy named Stefan, who tries to steal a jewel from the pool of jewels. As the Two Border Guards corner him, Maleficent shows up and tells him to hand over the stolen jewel, which he reluctantly does. After tossing it back where it came from, she escorts Stefan to the border of the Moors. They admit to each other that they are both orphans, and meeting each other is forbidden to both their worlds. However, the two of them eventually become the best of friends, and on Maleficent's sixteenth birthday, Stefan shows her true love's kiss (but in fact it was not).
Over the next couple of years, Stefan stops visiting the Moors because of his ambition and some other reasons, and due to the threatening attacks on Moors by King Henry, Maleficent becomes her homeland’s sworn protector. With the forest army by her side, she engages the King's army in battle, defeating them and wounding the King. On his deathbed, the King demands to be avenged. He promises that whoever kills Maleficent shall become the new king and marry his beautiful daughter Leila. It is revealed that Stefan has become one of the king’s servants and, wanting to claim the throne, he journeys to the Moors to find Maleficent. She forgives Stefan for his folly and ambition and the two are reunited and spend the night together like they used to. Stefan tricks her into taking a drink that puts her to sleep and after she falls into her slumber, Stefan makes the attempt to kill. However, he hesitates and cannot bring himself to do it. Instead, he burns off her wings using iron (iron burns fairies) and presents them to the dying king, leaving Maleficent in agony. After creating a staff to help her walk, she journeys to an abandoned castle where she hides in the shadows, broken and alone.
One day, she comes across a farmer who has captured a raven. Taking pity on the small bird, she turns the raven into a man. After the farmer runs away in fear, Maleficent approaches the human bird, who introduces himself as Diaval. Since she saved him, he offers to be her humble servant and Maleficent assigns him his first task: to find Stefan. Diaval flies to the castle and witnesses Stefan being crowned king, with Leila as his queen. When he informs Maleficent of what he has learnt, she becomes enraged. She returns to the Moors as dark clouds loom across the forest, then, after roots form a throne, Maleficent sits there as the new Evil Queen of the Moors.
One day, Queen Leila gives birth to a daughter, and she is named Aurora after the dawning of the sun. A royal christening takes place at the castle and the three pixies Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle bless the infant princess with magical gifts. Then, just before Thistlewit could present her gift, Maleficent shows up. Still disgusted by what Stefan did to her, she curses the princess to fall into a death-like sleep by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel on her sixteenth birthday. However when Stefan begs her to spare his daughter's life, Maleficent softens and includes that the curse can only be lifted by true love’s kiss. No power on earth can change it. Maleficent also makes an indestructible thorny border wall around the Moors to not suffer by humans’ access again. Stefan shuts himself behind the walls of his castle while his soldiers rode far and wide to hunt Maleficent down. He has every spinning wheel in the kingdom burned and locked away in the deepest dungeon of the castle. He also has the three pixies take Aurora into hiding. They take her to an old cottage in the woods and pose as her three human aunts.
As the years pass, Maleficent watches over the young princess and despite her initial hatred for the little “Beastie,” she reluctantly takes care of her from afar when the Pixies are incapable and struggling to live like humans. In the meantime, Stefan becomes extremely darkened, further consumes by paranoia, vengeance and obsession for hunting Maleficent down. He has his blacksmiths work nonstop to produce iron armory as he knows iron is lethal to fairies. Unfortunately, Queen Leila becomes gravely ill and dies, but Stefan is so consumed by his desire to kill Maleficent that he shows no grief over his queen’s death. By the time Aurora is fifteen, she finally comes in contact with Maleficent, believing she is her fairy godmother as she recalled being watched over by her all her life. Maleficent allows Aurora to spend more time in the Moors with her and the two eventually develop a mother and daughter-like relationship. After returning her home and putting her to bed, Maleficent tries to r