---
title: "Frankenstein"
year: 2025
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/frankenstein"
fi1m_id: "frankenstein"
imdb_id: "tt1312221"
tmdb_id: 1062722
wikidata_id: "Q124393045"
fi1m_score: 74
critics_score: 81
critics_reviews: 7
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:48.503124+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Frankenstein (2025)

Directed by Guillermo del Toro · 2h 30m · MPA R · Drama, Fantasy, Horror

## Identity

Frankenstein

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/frankenstein
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** frankenstein
- **IMDb ID:** tt1312221
- **TMDB ID:** 1062722
- **Wikidata ID:** Q124393045
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1312221/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1062722, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q124393045

**Fi1m score: 74** · Critics 81 from 7 reviews

*In a sentence:* The father shouts for an hour, then the son is allowed to speak, and suddenly it is a film

> Del Toro has plainly been planning this for years, and half of it is worth the wait. Jacob Elordi’s Creature is patient and sad and holds the picture together; Oscar Isaac’s Victor spends his half shouting at machinery.

## Synopsis

A ship is trapped in Arctic ice when its crew pulls a wounded man off the floe. He is Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), a surgeon, and something enormous is following him across the ice. To Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) he tells his story: a childhood under a cold father (Charles Dance), a mother lost in childbirth, and an obsession with undoing death that leads him, with money from the arms dealer Harlander (Christoph Waltz), to build a laboratory in a tower and assemble a body from the dead. What he brings to life (Jacob Elordi) is not what he wanted. Mia Goth plays Elizabeth, engaged to Victor’s brother William (Felix Kammerer). Guillermo del Toro writes and directs from Mary Shelley’s novel.

## Review

A ship is stuck in Arctic ice, and a man is brought aboard half dead, followed across the floe by something large that wants him. Captain Anderson (Lars Mikkelsen) gets the story first from the man, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), and later from the thing itself. Guillermo del Toro has written and directed his own version of Mary Shelley’s novel, and it runs 150 minutes. It is good. It is not quite the film most of its admirers say it is, because the first hour or so belongs to Victor, and Victor is exhausting company.

Victor’s half begins in childhood: a father, Leopold (Charles Dance), a surgeon who teaches anatomy with a strap, and a mother, Claire (Mia Goth), who dies giving birth to his brother William. The boy (Christian Convery) decides death is an insult he will answer. Cast out of medicine, he finds a patron in Harlander (Christoph Waltz), an arms dealer with reasons of his own, and builds a laboratory in a tower. Tamara Deverell’s tower is the best set in the film, a column of iron and glass with a tank at its centre, and Dan Laustsen lights it in cold blue-green for the stone and hot amber for the fire. Kate Hawley puts Isaac in a long red coat so he is the only warm thing in the laboratory.

The creation is the sequence everyone will talk about. Alexandre Desplat’s score climbs with the lightning, the body in the tank jolts, and del Toro holds on Isaac’s face while he waits to find out what he has made. What he has made sits up and says one word, his maker’s name. We were moved by that, more than we expected from a scene we have seen a dozen times, and the reason is Elordi’s voice: a small, uncertain sound coming out of an enormous body. Victor hears it as a failure. Del Toro has found the whole story in that one exchange, and then tells it to us several more times.

The second half belongs to the Creature, and that is where we would send you. Jacob Elordi plays him without bolts or scars; the body is put together like a porcelain figure, with fine seams where the parts meet, and the face is mostly his own. He moves as if the limbs were borrowed, which they were. The stretch in the forest, where he is taken in by a blind old man (David Bradley) who cannot see what he is and treats him as a guest, is the only part of the film that trusts silence. Evan Schiff, who cuts the Victor scenes fast and crowded, lets these run. Bradley plays it plainly and it is enough.

Most of the human cast around Victor does not work. Waltz’s Harlander is there to sign cheques and look sinister, and does both as if he has read the script once. Goth’s Elizabeth, engaged to William (Felix Kammerer), has been given more to do than Shelley gave her, an interest in insects and a habit of saying the film’s themes aloud, and the film cannot decide what she is for. Kammerer barely registers. Isaac plays Victor at a pitch of constant fury, and after forty minutes we stopped hearing it. He is better in the frame story, wrapped in blankets, telling the captain what he did.

Del Toro has made this film before, in pieces. The great gothic house from *Crimson Peak* is here, and the gentle monster from *The Shape of Water*, and the argument about fathers from *Pinocchio*, assembled with enormous care. In the first half the care gets in the way. Every frame is full and nothing is allowed to be plain. James Whale’s 1931 version got the same story done in about seventy minutes, and while we would not swap Elordi for Karloff, we did think about that runtime more than once.

It is a 15 certificate and earns it early, where Victor gathers his parts from a battlefield. Sit through the first hour for the sake of the second. The Creature had to, and he came out of it better than anyone around him expected.

*Fi1m score 74, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like it, and the praise clusters in two places: Jacob Elordi’s creature and the look of the film. Reviewers describe the production design as lavish, operatic and gaudily gothic, and nearly all of them call Elordi’s performance sympathetic and the reason the film works. Oscar Isaac’s Victor is praised almost as often, Mia Goth less so. Del Toro’s fidelity to Shelley, with his own additions on fathers, sons and outcasts, is widely welcomed.

The reservations are consistent too. Several reviews find the film long and slow, with a busy first half and a final act that feels rushed or scattered, and a few complain that romance and melodrama crowd out the horror. The spread is fairly narrow. The Financial Times is the clearest dissenter, calling it overstuffed and seriously flawed, and The Independent finds it formally accomplished but short on emotional charge. Nobody dismisses it outright.

## Straight answers

**How long is Frankenstein, and what is it rated?**

*Frankenstein* runs 2h 30m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and fantasy film.

**Where can I watch Frankenstein in the US?**

*Frankenstein* is streaming on Netflix in the US. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**What should I watch after Frankenstein?**

After *Frankenstein*, try [*Bride of Frankenstein*](https://film.one/film/bride-of-frankenstein) (1935, Fi1m 89): Whale’s sequel does the sympathetic monster in seventy-five minutes and finds jokes too. Then [*The Spirit of the Beehive*](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive) (1973, Fi1m 87): A Spanish child watches Frankenstein in 1940 and goes looking for the monster herself; and [*Crimson Peak*](https://film.one/film/crimson-peak) (2015, Fi1m 74): Del Toro’s earlier gothic house, with Laustsen’s colours and less shouting.

### Reviews we read (18)

- **Radio Times** (★★★★★): Del Toro delivers what may be the definitive screen version of Shelley's novel, a gory and glorious two-and-a-half-hour love letter filled with tangible invention, beautiful craft, and heartbreaking performances from Isaac and Elordi. It is one of the most beautifully made films of the year. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/frankenstein-review-2025-guillermo-del-toro/)
- **The Telegraph** (4/5): The critic praises Jacob Elordi's magnetically charismatic performance as the monster, which makes one feel sympathy for the devil in this cranked-to-11 creature feature. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/reviews/frankenstein-guillermo-del-toro/)
- **Time Out**, John Bleasdale (4/5): Del Toro brings Mary Shelley's creature to glorious, gaudy gothic life in a bombastic and sublime film that is loud, emotional, and sympathetic to its misunderstood monster. The production is spectacular and the performances, especially Isaac's, are superb. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/frankenstein-review-2025)
- **Empire**, Jamie Graham: The critic lauds del Toro’s painstaking artistry, elegant creature design and the film’s huge beating heart as a stitched-together Gothic romanticism that balances fairy tale, fantasy and body-horror. Faithfulness to the source with personal thematic additions is praised. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/frankenstein-2025/)
- **Financial Times**, Danny Leigh (★★★☆☆): The critic calls it a well-meant but seriously flawed and overstuffed passion project that emphasises emotional scars in the doctor-creature relationship. The monster's mournful truth is singled out for praise amid morbid high jinks. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/ba492c18-8fa0-422d-9ece-80ea9f928187)
- **Screen Daily**: Del Toro's operatic adaptation works best at its most grand and emotional, with superb turns from Isaac and Elordi as Victor and the creature. It is a handsome, passionate Gothic melodrama that triumphs in spectacle and theme even if it sometimes favors grand gestures over nuance. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/frankenstein-review-oscar-isaac-and-jacob-elordi-spark-in-guillermo-del-toros-operatic-adaptation/5208188.article)
- **Sight and Sound**: Del Toro's lavish adaptation is a grand gothic fairytale that understands the story as a cautionary tale about poor parenting, with strong performances from Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi. It is visceral and melodramatic, though it occasionally veers toward the silly while staying sincere. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/frankenstein-guillermo-del-toros-creation-plays-like-grand-gothic-fairytale)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw: The critic finds del Toro's version a bombastic but watchable stately melodrama with distinctive luxurious visuals that sometimes impede horror energy. The shift to the creature's point of view is singled out as an ingenious jolt of life. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/aug/30/frankenstein-review-guillermo-del-toro-oscar-isaac-jacob-elordi)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, David Rooney: Del Toro delivers a sumptuous, emotionally charged retelling that emphasizes tragedy, romance, and philosophical reflection over straight horror, with revelatory performances from Oscar Isaac and especially Jacob Elordi as the Creature. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/frankenstein-review-oscar-isaac-jacob-elordi-netflix-1236351926/)
- **The Independent**, Geoffrey Macnab: The critic finds del Toro’s adaptation visually stunning and formally masterful but ultimately thematically lacking and short on emotional voltage. Elordi’s sympathetic Creature and the production design are singled out amid complaints of romanticism over horror. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/frankenstein-review-guillermo-del-toro-venice-b2816625.html)
- **The i Paper**, Christina Newland: The critic praises the film as a powerfully entertaining and emotionally resonant retelling that mines rich vulnerability from the familiar story. Performances by Isaac, Elordi and Goth, along with striking visuals and thematic depth on suffering and creation, are highlighted. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/guillermo-del-toro-frankenstein-profound-passionate-3978950)
- **The New York Times**, Alissa Wilkinson (Critic's Pick): The critic calls del Toro’s adaptation the movie he was born to make, praising its lush, romantic, and emotional take on the story of fathers, sons, and outcasts. She highlights how the film stays true to Shelley’s themes while infusing del Toro’s signature fingerprints of pathos and strange beauty. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/movies/frankenstein-review.html)
- **Total Film**, Jane Crowther: The critic calls the film a masterfully concocted and pertinent adaptation that is classy if somewhat safe, with awards potential. Ravishing production design and thematic relevance are praised, while the leisurely pace and fidelity to the book are noted as drawbacks. [Read](https://gamesradar.com/entertainment/sci-fi-movies/frankenstein-review)
- **Vulture**: The first half feels busy and lifeless, but Jacob Elordi’s Creature breathes soul into the film; del Toro fills it with his obsessions in a technically masterful, passionate adaptation that feels like the work of a true madman. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/article/review-jacob-elordi-is-the-soul-of-gdts-frankenstein.html)
- **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (80/100, inferred): Del Toro’s adaptation is a fascinating and thoughtful tale on what it means to be human and who is really the monster. The critic singles out the grand, operatic intensity of the creation sequence along with the exceptional score and old-fashioned visuals. [Read](https://deadline.com/2025/08/frankenstein-review-guillermo-del-toro-1236500792/)
- **Polygon**, Oli Welsh (80/100, inferred): Jacob Elordi delivers a standout sympathetic and attractive performance as the creature in this gothic adaptation that emphasizes romantic melodrama over horror, though supporting human characters are overshadowed. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/frankenstein-netflix-guillermo-del-toro-jacob-elordi-hot-monster/)
- **Collider**, Ross Bonaime (7/10): The film is a visually stunning passion project with strong empathy in Jacob Elordi's creature performance, but suffers from uneven pacing and an overly long runtime that makes it exhausting. [Read](https://collider.com/frankenstein-2025-review-guillermo-del-toro-jacob-elordi-oscar-isaac/)
- **Den of Geek**, Joe George (3.5/5): Del Toro’s Frankenstein is a lush, empathetic take on Shelley’s story that feels uniquely his, with strong performances especially from Jacob Elordi as the tender Creature and Mia Goth as Elizabeth. The film excels in its visuals and monster design but feels rushed and thematically scattered in its final act. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/frankenstein-review-guillermo-del-toro/)

## Details

- **Director:** Guillermo del Toro
- **Director:** Guillermo del Toro
- **Writer:** Guillermo del Toro
- **Novel:** Mary Shelley
- **Cinematography:** Dan Laustsen
- **Editor:** Evan Schiff
- **Music:** Alexandre Desplat
- **Production design:** Tamara Deverell
- **Costume design:** Kate Hawley
- **Producer:** J. Miles Dale, Guillermo del Toro, Scott Stuber
- **Cast:** Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein; Jacob Elordi as The Creature; Christoph Waltz as Harlander; Mia Goth as Elizabeth / Claire Frankenstein; Felix Kammerer as William Frankenstein; Charles Dance as Leopold Frankenstein; David Bradley as Blind Man; Lars Mikkelsen as Captain Anderson
- **Runtime:** 2h 30m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 17 October 2025
- **Genres:** Drama, Fantasy, Horror
- **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2025); [Golden Globe Best Drama winners](https://film.one/collections/golden-globe-drama.md) (Nominee, 2025)
- **Budget:** $120 million
- **Box office:** $480,678
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WZllcEgWrM

## Where to watch in the US

- Netflix: streaming

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Golden Globes 2026: Best Motion Picture – Drama (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *Bride of Frankenstein* (1935), Fi1m 89: Whale’s sequel does the sympathetic monster in seventy-five minutes and finds jokes too. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bride-of-frankenstein.md)
- *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: A Spanish child watches Frankenstein in 1940 and goes looking for the monster herself. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md)
- *Crimson Peak* (2015), Fi1m 74: Del Toro’s earlier gothic house, with Laustsen’s colours and less shouting. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/crimson-peak.md)
- *Gods and Monsters* (1998), Fi1m 82: James Whale in old age, played by Ian McKellen, still haunted by his creature. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/gods-and-monsters.md)
- *Poor Things* (2023), Fi1m 76: Lanthimos turns the reanimation story inside out and gives the creation the lead. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/poor-things.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/frankenstein