Award-winning director Guillermo del Toro has been working with his signature blend of horror, fantasy and human drama for over thirty years.
His newest film, an adaptation of Frankenstein, has been a passion project of his for many years. After a short theatrical run, it finally gets its premiere on Netflix this Friday. It stars Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac and Mia Goth.
In celebration, Watch With Us took a look at his entire filmography and picked our five favorites — a tough deliberation, as his filmography is made up of fantastic movies like Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy.
Check out our definitive list, ranked by Rotten Tomatoes score.
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5. Crimson Peak (2015)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 72 percent
Aspiring author Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) meets English baronet Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston), falls for him, and is swept away to his massive Gothic mansion, Crimson Peak, where he lives with his strange and mysterious sister, Lucille (Jessica Chastain). There, Edith begins communicating with spirits that are sending her warnings, as she delves into the secrets hidden underneath Crimson Peak and protected by the Sharpe siblings.
Crimson Peak is easily del Toro’s most underappreciated film, but it is also handily one of his best. Lavish, ghostly, tragic and romantic, it borders on excess and camp in the best ways. It is hard to resist for fans of period melodrama as well as fans of murder-mystery and ghost stories. Accompanied by sumptuous performances from the core cast, Crimson Peak is a visual and emotional feast.
4. Hellboy (2004)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 81 percent
Based on creator Mike Mignola’s comic series of the same name, Hellboy follows the titular demon who is brought onto Earth as a baby by Nazis seeking access to a paranormal dimension. Rescued by the Allied forces, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) now works for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense sixty years later. Aided by other supernatural beings, he works to protect the Earth from malevolent enemies while battling his own innate darkness.
Hellboy combines smart humor with fleshed-out, empathetic characters and del Toro’s signature sense of visual flair. Complete with terrifying creatures, compelling action sequences and a romantic subplot buoyed by heaps of yearning, Hellboy is a showcase for many of the aspects that make del Toro’s work stand out, while also being a great comic adaptation with Perlman devouring the scenery as Hellboy.
3. The Shape of Water (2017)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 92 percent
Mute, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works for a top-secret government lab facility in Baltimore during the 1960s. The quiet solitude of her days is suddenly interrupted when she meets her work’s newest specimen: an amphibious fish-man (Doug Jones) captured from South America. With no verbal way to communicate, Elisa nevertheless bonds with the imprisoned creature and eventually falls in love with him. But she quickly realizes that she must help him escape from ill-meaning powers that be.
Clinching the Academy Award for Best Picture back in 2018, The Shape of Water made history by becoming the second fantasy film to do so after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Gentle and aesthetically brilliant while also a genuinely heartrending unconventional love story, The Shape of Water was felt by critics to be del Toro at the top of his game in this elegant story of society’s treatment of the Other.
2. The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93 percent
A remote orphanage during the Spanish Civil War operates as a base for a faction of rebels against dictator Francisco Franco, and it’s where a young boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives one day, unaware that his father has been killed. As Carlos strikes up friendships with the other orphans, he also begins seeing visions of a ghostly child named Santi. While the adults who run the school deal with political turmoil, Carlos slowly uncovers the school’s secrets and what really happened to the ghost boy.
Del Toro’s first work of magical realism is both a chilling ghost story and a fascinating political allegory. Despite its many intermingling plotlines, it manages to be a totally compelling narrative that blends fear with a gentleness that is frequently present in del Toro’s other work. The Devil’s Backbone is not only an effective horror movie, it is also profoundly sad — and beautiful to look at.
1. Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 95 percent
In the summer of 1944, young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) travels with her pregnant mother (Maribel Verdú) to meet her mother’s new husband, the ruthless nationalist Captain Vidal (Sergi López). At the estate, Ofelia discovers an ancient stone labyrinth, wherein a faun (Doug Jones) explains she is the reincarnation of a magical princess. He gives Ofelia three tasks to complete to return to her kingdom, which Ofelia seeks to complete while evading the wrath of the sadistic Vidal.
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Following The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth is del Toro’s second film set in Francoist Spain, and the director considers the two films to be siblings due to their settings and exploration of similar themes. Despite The Shape of Water being del Toro’s Best Picture-winner, many consider Pan’s Labyrinth to be the director’s magnum opus. Its engaging, intelligent story, meticulous special effects and haunting visuals create a film experience unlike any other.
