--- title: "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" year: 1994 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/mary-shelleys-frankenstein" fi1m_id: "mary-shelleys-frankenstein" imdb_id: "tt0109836" tmdb_id: 3036 wikidata_id: "Q833180" fi1m_score: 54 critics_score: 44 critics_reviews: 10 published: "2026-10-04T23:52:22.643967+00:00" updated: "2026-10-04T23:52:32.323278+00:00" region: "JP" 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." --- # Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) Directed by Kenneth Branagh · 2h 03m · Drama, Horror, Science Fiction, Romance ## Identity Mary Shelley's Frankenstein - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/mary-shelleys-frankenstein - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** mary-shelleys-frankenstein - **IMDb ID:** tt0109836 - **TMDB ID:** 3036 - **Wikidata ID:** Q833180 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109836/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/3036, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q833180 **Fi1m score: 54** · Critics 44 from 10 reviews *In a sentence:* The camera never stops moving, the orchestra never stops playing and Branagh never finds his shirt > Kenneth Branagh set out to make the faithful Frankenstein and made the loudest one. Robert De Niro’s Creature and a soaked, slithering birth scene are worth seeing; the rest is a great novel shouted at speed, and it wears you out. ## Synopsis A ship under Captain Robert Walton (Aidan Quinn) is locked in Arctic ice when its crew hauls aboard a half-dead man, Victor Frankenstein (Kenneth Branagh), who insists on telling his story. He grows up in a grand house in Geneva with his father, Baron Frankenstein (Ian Holm), with Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), raised alongside him and loved by him, and with his mother Caroline (Cherie Lunghi), whose death leaves him swearing that no one need die. At the university in Ingolstadt he befriends Henry Clerval (Tom Hulce), argues with Professor Krempe (Robert Hardy) and is taken up by Professor Waldman (John Cleese), who keeps notes on reviving the dead that he will not share. Victor builds a laboratory in his attic and begins to assemble a body. ## Review Kenneth Branagh directs and stars in a 123-minute [*Frankenstein*](https://film.one/film/frankenstein) that puts the author’s name in the title, which is a promise: this is to be the faithful one, the version that gives you the book rather than the bolt through the neck. Steph Lady and Frank Darabont’s script keeps most of what Mary Shelley wrote. The ship in the ice is there, and Geneva, and Ingolstadt, and the Creature who teaches himself to read and comes back to make demands. What the film cannot do is keep still, and the novel is a patient book. Roger Pratt’s camera circles the actors, cranes up over them and rushes down corridors after them, and Andrew Marcus cuts a conversation at a dinner table as if it were a pursuit. Patrick Doyle’s orchestra is under nearly all of it, brass and choir, at a pitch most films save for their last ten minutes. A dance in the Frankenstein house is shot from above with the couples spinning on Tim Harvey’s great staircase, and it is handsome and it is already too much. We were worn out before Victor had left home for university, and we were irritated at being worn out, because a story about a man who goes too far needs somewhere further to go. The one place where the volume matches the subject is the creation. Victor (Branagh), stripped to the waist and shining with sweat, tips eels into a copper sarcophagus full of fluid, and when the lid is prised off the Creature (Robert De Niro) comes out in a flood of it, and the two of them slip and flail on the wet floor like a man trying to hold a landed fish. We were horrified, and properly so. It is clumsy, naked and sickening in a way the old laboratory scenes, with their levers and lightning, never risked, and for ten minutes the film is about what it says it is about: a birth, and a father who cannot bear to look. De Niro is the reason to stay. Under the stitching he does nearly everything with his eyes and a soft, careful voice, and the stretch in which he hides in a lean-to against a cottage and learns to speak by watching the family inside, among them Richard Briers as a blind grandfather, is the only part of the film that slows down enough to hurt. It moved us, more than the rest of the picture had earned, and then Doyle’s strings came in to make sure we had noticed and the moment was gone. The Creature’s later demands of his maker are the best written scenes in the film, and De Niro plays them as a man arguing a case rather than a monster making threats. Branagh plays Victor as a man forever running up stairs. It is a performance of exertion: he shouts, he weeps, he loses his shirt again, and he is never allowed a quiet minute in which to think, so we never see how a clever young man arrives at a vat of eels. Helena Bonham Carter is good as Elizabeth and given little to do but wait and worry, which she does with more intelligence than the lines contain. Tom Hulce’s Henry Clerval is a warm friend who exists to be told things. Ian Holm has a few scenes as the Baron and makes them count. The surprise is John Cleese as Professor Waldman, quiet, unsmiling and sad, the one person in the film who seems to understand what is at stake. James Acheson’s costumes are heavy and exact; the Creature’s long coat, which makes him a shape on a skyline, is the best of them. The film is produced by Francis Ford Coppola and James V. Hart, who had made *Bram Stoker’s Dracula* two years before. That film was theatrical on purpose and enjoyed itself. This one wants to be an opera and a serious adaptation at the same time, and the two keep tripping over each other. It follows the novel far more closely than the 1931 film did, and it is nowhere near as frightening. The dread in the book comes from waiting, and this film never waits. Most critics were harder on it than we are, and we understand why, but the birth scene and De Niro buy it more credit than it has been given. Watch it at home, where you can pause and breathe; it will not. The 15 certificate is earned by the slime rather than the scares, which tells you a good deal. *Fi1m score 54, published 4 October 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics find Branagh’s adaptation overblown: loud, pompous and less affecting than the novel it is named after. Six of the ten reviews are negative, and one is positive. Where there is praise, it goes to the scale of the production, the extravagant design and the creation sequence, and to Robert De Niro’s Creature, which several reviews single out as the most convincing and sympathetic thing on screen. The reservations are consistent. The dialogue is called inane, the tone florid and camp, and the film is said to lose the story’s heart while failing to be frightening or funny; more than one critic reaches for the 1931 film and Boris Karloff by way of unflattering comparison. The spread is wide, from warm to dismissive. Variety and The New Yorker break from the others on De Niro, finding the Creature’s bid for sympathy overplayed and short of terror, while Slant, the lone admirer, calls his woodland-shack sequence the film’s emotional centre. ## Straight answers **Is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein worth watching?** *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein* is worth watching only for Robert De Niro's Creature and a soaked, sickening birth scene, and we scored it 54. The rest is Mary Shelley's patient novel shouted at speed, with a camera that never stops moving and an orchestra that never stops playing. Watch it at home, where you can pause and breathe. **How long is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and what is it rated?** *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein* runs 2h 03m. It is a drama and horror film. **Where can I watch Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in Japan?** *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein* is not on any streaming or rental service in Japan at the moment. It is available in 31 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily. **How violent or frightening is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and is it suitable for children?** *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein* is a 15 in the UK and R in the US, and the certificate is earned by slime rather than scares. The creation scene, with a naked Victor and his Creature flailing in a flood of fluid, is clumsy and horrifying, but the film is rarely frightening in the way the novel is. Not for children; teenagers who can take a wet, graphic birth will manage. **How does Mary Shelley's Frankenstein compare to Bride of Frankenstein?** *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein* follows the novel far more closely than [*Bride of Frankenstein*](https://film.one/film/bride-of-frankenstein), and is the worse film. James Whale's sequel is witty, strange and moving in 75 minutes; Branagh's version takes 123 and wears you out. Choose Branagh for De Niro's Creature and the book's structure, and Whale for the better film about the Creature. **Is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein based on a true story or a book?** *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein* is based on Mary Shelley's novel, not a true story, and it keeps most of what she wrote: the ship in the ice, Geneva, Ingolstadt and the Creature who teaches himself to read. It is far more faithful than the 1931 film. Knowing the book is not required, though readers will miss its patience. **What should I watch after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein?** After *Mary Shelley's Frankenstein*, try [*Bride of Frankenstein*](https://film.one/film/bride-of-frankenstein) (1935, Fi1m 89): James Whale’s sequel: witty, strange and still the best film about the Creature. Then [*The Spirit of the Beehive*](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive) (1973, Fi1m 87): A child in Franco’s Spain sees the 1931 film and goes looking for the monster; and [*Bram Stoker's Dracula*](https://film.one/film/bram-stokers-dracula) (1992, Fi1m 79): Coppola’s companion piece, just as loud and far more honest about enjoying itself. ### Reviews we read (10) - **Slant Magazine**, Rocco T. Thompson (4/5): Thompson calls the film a beautiful monstrosity, handsomely mounted but largely unimaginative. He praises Robert De Niro’s soulful Creature performance and the woodland-shack sequence as the film’s emotional center. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/mary-shelleys-frankenstein-4k-review-kenneth-branagh/) - **The New York Times**, Janet Maslin (64/100, inferred): The page is identified as a film review, but its text is inaccessible, so the critic’s verdict cannot be confirmed. The headline mentions a brain on ice and a dead toad, but the review’s praise or complaints cannot be established. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/04/movies/film-review-frankenstein-a-brain-on-ice-a-dead-toad-and-voila.html) - **Time Out**, GA (63/100, inferred): The review questions whether Branagh’s adaptation achieves the authenticity and depth it appears to seek. The accessible text cuts off before revealing its specific verdict or any point singled out for praise or complaint. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/mary-shelleys-frankenstein) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (2.5/4): Ebert finds the film overblown and less affecting than its source material. He singles out the ambitious production and performances, though they do not overcome its excesses. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mary-shelleys-frankenstein-1994) - **Radio Times**, Tom Hutchinson (2/5): Hutchinson finds Branagh’s adaptation pompous and says it loses the story’s heart and soul. He singles out the creature’s creation as spectacular, while faulting the rest for being less frightening or funny than the 1931 classic. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-bqjovk/mary-shelleys-frankenstein/) - **Empire**, Angie Errigo (35/100, inferred): Errigo finds the film entertaining but ultimately unconvincing and less engaging than it could have been. She praises its extravagant production design and set-pieces, while faulting the inane dialogue. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mary-shelley-frankenstein-review/) - **The AV Club**, Nathan Rabin (30/100, inferred): Rabin calls the film a noble failure, arguing that it is muddled and neither frightening nor intellectually compelling. He praises De Niro’s creature as a fascinating figure, while criticizing the film’s florid camp and pretensions. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/my-year-of-flops-case-file-80-mary-shelleys-frankenste-1798212917) - **Variety**, Brian Lowry (25/100, inferred): Lowry finds the film a major creative disappointment, an overwrought adaptation that loses its balance among pathos, romance and horror. He praises Helena Bonham Carter’s performance as radiant and engaging, while criticizing Robert De Niro’s creature for failing to inspire terror or empathy. [Read](https://variety.com/1994/film/reviews/mary-shelley-s-frankenstein-1200438753/) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (20/100, inferred): Turan judges the film a loud, tacky disappointment that loses the original story’s gravity and humor. He singles out De Niro’s creature as the film’s most convincing and sympathetic element. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-11-04-ca-58442-story.html) - **The New Yorker**, Anthony Lane (20/100, inferred): Lane finds the film hysterical, tedious, and unable to create genuine fright. He singles out the creature’s overplayed appeal for sympathy, contrasting it unfavorably with Boris Karloff’s unsettling ambiguity. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1994/11/14/obituary-5) ## Details - **Director:** Kenneth Branagh - **Director:** Kenneth Branagh - **Writer:** Frank Darabont, Steph Lady - **Novel:** Mary Shelley - **Cinematography:** Roger Pratt - **Editor:** Andrew Marcus - **Music:** Patrick Doyle - **Production design:** Tim Harvey - **Costume design:** James Acheson - **Producer:** Francis Ford Coppola, James V. Hart, John Veitch - **Cast:** Robert De Niro as The Creature / Sharp Featured Man; Kenneth Branagh as Victor Frankenstein; Tom Hulce as Henry Clerval; Helena Bonham Carter as Elizabeth; Aidan Quinn as Cap. Robert Walton; Ian Holm as Baron Frankenstein; Richard Briers as Grandfather; John Cleese as Prof. Waldman - **Runtime:** 2h 03m - **First release (Spain):** 4 November 1994 - **Genres:** Drama, Horror, Science Fiction, Romance - **Budget:** $45 million - **Box office:** $112 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkZAPkKDd9I ## Where to watch in Japan Not streaming, renting or buying in Japan at the last check. Also available in: AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 1995: Best Makeup and Hairstyling (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Bride of Frankenstein* (1935), Fi1m 89: James Whale’s sequel: witty, strange and still the best film about the Creature. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bride-of-frankenstein.md) - *The Curse of Frankenstein* (1957): Hammer’s version, with Peter Cushing’s Victor as the real monster of the piece. - *The Spirit of the Beehive* (1973), Fi1m 87: A child in Franco’s Spain sees the 1931 film and goes looking for the monster. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive.md) - *Bram Stoker's Dracula* (1992), Fi1m 79: Coppola’s companion piece, just as loud and far more honest about enjoying itself. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bram-stokers-dracula.md) - *Gods and Monsters* (1998), Fi1m 82: James Whale in old age, remembering the laboratory; quieter and sadder than any monster. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/gods-and-monsters.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/mary-shelleys-frankenstein