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Guillermo Del Toro is a world-renowned filmmaker, best known for movies such as: Hellboy (2004), The Shape of Water and Pacific Rim. He has brought to life creatures from the deepest recesses of his mind—yet they never seem entirely monstrous. Del Toro gives depth to his creations; no matter the film, he always takes care to make audiences second-guess who the real monster is. In recent years, he has worked very closely with the streaming service Netflix to create films such as 2022’s Pinocchio. His latest collaboration with them has produced the greatest fruit of all. A film that Del Toro has wanted to make for the last 30 years. It finally came alive when on Nov. 7, 2025, Netflix released Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s iconic 19th-century Gothic novel, Frankenstein. 

Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein shows the two perspectives of the novel’s main leads, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) and the Creature (Frankenstein’s monster) (Jacob Elordi). As such, the film is split into multiple parts: “The Prelude,” “Part I: Victor’s Tale” and “Part II: The Creature’s Tale.”

“The Prelude” begins in the Arctic in 1857 with a Royal Danish Navy ship called the Horisont on the way to the North Pole. The Horisont has crashed into a massive sheet of ice, its crew now rendered helplessly stuck. The ship’s captain, Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen), refused to turn the ship around, even when it becomes unstuck, to the dismay of his crew. While they attempt to figure things out, they notice an explosion in the distance. After they traveled to the site of the explosion, they find a hindered Victor Frankenstein fighting for his life in the snow. Whilst Victor was tended to on the Horisont, the crew is attacked by the Creature. The Creature demands that Victor be brought to him, but Anderson blasts him into the depths below with a blunderbuss before it can be done. Victor then proceeds to explain who he is and how he created the Creature, leading into “Part I: Victor’s Tale.” 

“Part I: Victor’s Tale” continues the film into Victor’s childhood with a voiceover by the man himself. Viewers watch as Victor goes through the many events that turned him into the man he would eventually become. This includes abuse and neglect from his father, the death of his Mother and his visions of the Angel of Death. His mother, Claire Frankenstein (Mia Goth), died when she gave birth to his younger brother, William (Felix Kammerer). This significant loss drives Victor to become an egotistical genius of a surgeon obsessed with curing the mystery of death. This obsession leads him down the path of no return.

After he showcased his progress through reanimating a corpse at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, he was expelled by a jury of his peers and condemned as defiler of the sciences he once pursued. Through narration, Victor explains how he met the benefactor, an arms dealer known as Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz), that would support his experiments. Through a tumultuous timeline, the Creature is brought to life. Eventually, Victor attempts to destroy his creation but fails in doing so. A flashback to the present is shown with Victor and Captain Anderson before the Creature enters the cabin of Horisont and explains his side of the story. This half is referred to as “Part II: The Creature’s Tale.”

“Part II: The Creature’s Tale” may be the best half of the movie. It explores the creature as he learns what it means to be alive through interactions with life around him, whether it be good or bad. This segment alone is worth a viewing of the film. “The Creature’s Tale” embodies what Del Toro wanted from his adaptation of Frankenstein wholeheartedly. 

The many themes throughout the film are mostly what bring it to life. Through Victor and the Creature’s experiences with the world, viewers learn how nature and nurture can shape a person’s outlook on the world. This can especially be the case when one is exposed to these elements at a young age, once again, like Victor and the Creature. 

The special effects and set designs allow Del Toro to tell the story of Frankenstein like never before. To the delight of fans of practical effect, most of everything seen in the film is practical. There are only a few instances where it uses CGI to create an environment or animals but even then it is not overdone. The Horisont is also a physical ship that the crew built from scratch just for the film. Guillermo’s vision was breathtakingly brought to life by his very dedicated crew that poured their all into the process of these spectacular effects. 

Frankenstein is a passion project that Guillermo Del Toro has had in mind for many years now and it shows. The care that he put into this was equivalent to that of a father to a son or a creator and a creation. It is a sleeper hit that came at the tail end of the year but it was indeed worth the wait. Many fans of the novel call it a “near perfect adaptation” with many others cited it as Del Toro’s best work yet. The intertwined story of Victor and the Creature is one that has existed for more than a century now and with good reason. This may just be the greatest adaptation of Shelley’s novel thus far. It ends with a quote that personifies the overarching message of the entire film quite well. 

“And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.” – Lord Byron

Grade: 9/10