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Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro is a director, born 1964.

Del Toro directed his first feature, Cronos, in Mexico in 1993, a vampire story built around an ornate clockwork device rather than a cape, and made his first English-language picture, Mimic, four years later. The two halves of the career were set almost immediately: Spanish-language films with a moral centre, The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth, alongside English-language genre work with a studio behind it, Blade II, the two Hellboy films, Pacific Rim.

His subject is monsters, which he treats as symbols of power rather than as threats. The films blend fairy tale, gothic and horror, and they insist on locating beauty inside the grotesque: insectile and religious imagery, underworld motifs, Catholic guilt, practical effects wherever a practical effect will do, and that unmistakable amber light. The reliable pattern is that the creature is not the villain. The man with the clean uniform and the polished boots is.

The Shape of Water carried that argument into a romance and brought him the Golden Globe for best director and the BAFTA for direction. His stop-motion Pinocchio took the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and it may be the most personal thing he has made. Nightmare Alley is the outlier worth arguing about, a carnival noir with no supernatural element in it at all.

He also works as a producer and curator for other people's horror, from The Book of Life and the Trollhunters series to The Strain and the Cabinet of Curiosities anthology. Frankenstein, in 2025, is the film the whole filmography has been walking toward since Cronos.

Movies (35)

TV (11)

Books (2)

Where to start with Guillermo del Toro

Pan's Labyrinth first, and there is not much of an argument to be had: fairy tale and history sharing a frame, with a child's imagination offering no protection whatsoever from the adults. The Devil's Backbone is the same idea at a smaller scale and makes the natural double bill.

If you want pleasure rather than grief, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is his most generous film, a parade of creature design with a decent heart inside it, and Pacific Rim is entirely unashamed about being a giant-robot picture for people who loved giant robots at nine.

The Shape of Water is the one that converted the awards bodies. Crimson Peak is the gothic romance that was undersold on release and deserves a second look. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio is the best thing he has made in a decade. Save Nightmare Alley for last: no monsters anywhere in it, which tells you what he actually thinks about people.

The Spanish-language films

The three Spanish-language features are the core of the work. Cronos is the debut and already fully formed, The Devil's Backbone is the ghost story, and Pan's Labyrinth is the best film he has made by a clear margin.

The English-language features

The Hollywood work, which is at its best when the studio lets the monsters lead. The two Hellboy films are the happiest of them, Pacific Rim is the biggest, and Crimson Peak is the gothic romance people underrated.

The Oscars and the television

The recent stretch, in which he finally won and then made the films he wanted. The Shape of Water took Best Picture and Best Director, and the Pinocchio is a stop-motion film about fascism aimed at children.

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Genres Guillermo del Toro works in

More about Guillermo del Toro

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