Frankenstein

It is a rare occasion when a horror movie cracks into the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards. Even rarer still is when more than one does so in the same year. Yet when the 2025 Best Picture nominees list was released on the morning of January 22, 2026, two such films were on that list: Sinners and Frankenstein. Neither is, of course, a traditional horror film, though both fall back on genre norms on occasion. Where Sinners was making comparisons between vampires and race relations, Frankenstein explores what it means to be human, to be alive, and how we can strive to be better than, or try to destroy, the one who created us, who brought us into the world.

In the case of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), that would be his father, Baron Leopold Frankenstein (Charles Dance), a doctor and strict disciplinarian who beats his son whenever he can’t answer one of his questions. When his wife, Baroness Clair Frankenstein (Mia Goth), dies giving birth to a second son, William, Victor sees that his father cannot conquer death and makes a vow, to best his father in this, proving that death can be defeated. 

This was a passion project for Guillermo del Toro. One needs only take a tour of his house to find that out. He collects artifacts from that book and the films that came from it. But, while he professes that this is an accurate rendition of the original novel and not a remake of any of the films that came before it, he does diverge at times to insert his own sensibilities into the story, including the heavy-handed use of Christian imagery, a love story that had echoes of his earlier film The Shape of Water, and a hefty dose of Oedipus. This latter part seems the most out there as del Toro is channeling Victor’s love for his mother into a romantic infatuation with his brother’s fiancée, Elizabeth (also played by Mia Goth). It’s this romantic attraction for a love that cannot be that drives many of Victor’s actions and ultimately is his undoing. 

This relationship he has with Elizabeth isn’t well developed, either, at least not in the way that del Toro was intending. We get so little time with young Victor and his mother that it is impossible to gauge their relationship outside of the generic mother-and-son dynamic. The same problem exists to a degree with his father, too. Casting Charles Dance in this role serves as a bit of shorthand, but that only goes so far. We get a couple of scenes between young Victor and his father, and then it cuts so quickly to the father in his casket that it feels like there is something missing in this cut of the film. 

After that, we progress to Victor doing experiments on reanimating corpses. This is another sharp cut as we jump right to him attending a disciplinary counsel for his experiments with nothing to put this into any real context and no insight into how he even got to this point in his work. He is all but ruined, despite his demonstration of reanimated tissue, until someone new shows up and throws him a lifeline. Into the picture strolls Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), a wealthy benefactor who offers Victor near unlimited resources and access to the corpses needed to continue his work. The only stipulation given is that Victor must do him a favor at a later date; such a stipulation is never a good thing, and that turns out to be true here, too. 

In previous adaptations of the Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein’s monster was given a defective brain, or the brain of a criminal, thus causing the creation to be violent and angry. That is not the case here. Baron Leopold Frankenstein makes the case early on that the soul of man is not found in the tissue, not the heart or anywhere else in the body. Victor strives to prove him wrong by bringing said dead tissue back to life, thus breathing a soul into a new body. When the time comes to make that happen, Henrich reveals his hand, showing to Victor exactly why he has been bankrolling these experiments and why the urgency has suddenly ramped up at the last minute. He is dying from syphilis and wants to be transplanted into the body of the creation, but in what way is not clear. Does he want his brain put into the new body? If so, then why is this brought up as they are preparing to reanimate the body as it would already have that brain in place? It’s a plot point that is suddenly dropped in but at a point where it leaves too many questions that del Toro isn’t interested in answering. Ultimately it comes to naught anyway as Henrich dies trying to get his own way, damaging the equipment a little and leaving us questioning whether or not that damage is the cause for the experiment turning out the way that it does. 

While Victor is initially optimistic about his creation (Jacob Elordi), that changes quickly when he decides “it” is not capable of real learning. It sours even more when Elizabeth shows up, takes pity, and shows affection for the creation, something she finally rejects in Victor. Ultimately, Victor tries to destroy his creation in a blaze of fire, resulting in him losing his own leg and the creature escaping. This leads into the second half of the movie, shifting narrative from Victor to the creature as he escapes the fire, befriends a family living on a farm, to a tragic end, and ultimately comes to seek his own form of vengeance on the man who gave him life and made it all but impossible for him to ever die. 

Guillermo del Toro has made one of the most impressively looking Frankenstein movies of all time. He was gifted well over $100 million to bring his passion project to life and add another feather in the cap of Netflix’s streaming service. Frankenstein went to theaters briefly, just long enough to qualify for the Oscars, then it was pulled and is now exclusively on streaming. Because of that, there is no real data on how much of a profit, if any, it is making for the studio. The reviews have been mostly positive, and it has secured nine Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. Critically, it is a success, but that doesn’t always translate into profitability. 

Still, with the nominations comes a bit more exposure, and there is certain to be renewed interest now that those nominations have been released to the world. And it is a worthy addition to the ten films up for the grand prize this year. It’s telling, though, that del Toro didn’t get a nomination as director, though he did get one for his screenplay. Considering just how immaculate this film looks, that is more on the strength of the directors that did get nominated than it is on this film. Perhaps, though, with the many similarities this film has with his earlier film, The Shape of Water, the voters just felt it was more of the same. This may be a passion project for the acclaimed director, but that doesn’t always mean the finished project is the best representation of what they are capable of; just look at what happened with Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis. 

This may be one of the most accurate adaptations to Mary Shelley’s prose, but that doesn’t make it the definitive version of the tale. Jacob Elordi is amazing as the creature, but he falls short of iconic. It’s a powerful performance that shows not only the humanity in the creature but also the violence and rage underneath. Still, there is a reason people still talk about Boris Karloff after nearly a hundred years. A hundred years from now, will people still be having this conversation about Elordi? 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, and Scott Stuber

Best Supporting Actor: Jacob Elordi

Best Adapted Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro

Best Cinematography: Dan Lausten

Best Production Design: Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau (won)

Best Costume Design: Kate Hawley (won)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, and Cliona Furey (won)

Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat

Best Sound: Greg Chapman, Nathan Robitaille, Nelson Ferreira, Christian Cooke, and Brad Zoern

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Release Date: October 17, 2025

Running Time: 150 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, and Christoph Waltz

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro