BFI TO CELEBRATE GUILLERMO DEL TORO WITH BFI FELLOWSHIP

The BFI today announced that it will be honouring filmmaker Guillermo del Toro with its highest accolade, a BFI Fellowship.  The award recognises his extraordinary contribution to film and the distinctive artistry that runs through his work across animation and live action, and as a Mexican filmmaker, in both Spanish and English. Fusing dark horror and gothic fantasy, drawing on folklore, fairytales, literature, sci-fi, religion and comic books, Del Toro creates lavish fantastical cinematic worlds and characters, often monsters and creatures, of deep emotional complexity. From Hellboy (2004) and his multiple Oscar triumphs Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and The Shape of Water (2017) to his recent retelling of Frankenstein (2025) – shot partly in the UK.

Guillermo del Toro has shot Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015) and Frankenstein (2025) on our stages at Pinewood Toronto Studios.

The BFI will award Guillermo del Toro his BFI Fellowship at the annual BFI Chair’s dinner, hosted by BFI Chair Jay Hunt, in London in May 2026.  He will take part in a public Career Conversation at BFI Southbank, where, together with BFI IMAX and on BFI Player, he will also be celebrated with a retrospective, and he will curate a film season at BFI Southbank at a later date. Del Toro will also deliver a series of Masterclasses to a group of young, aspiring filmmakers from the BFI Film Academy. In May, the BFI will re-release del Toro’s outstanding debut feature Cronos (1992), recently remastered in 4K by the BFI National Archive, overseen by del Toro, in cinemas UK wide.

Del Toro will make a special visit to the BFI National Archive as part of the Fellowship celebration. The BFI and del Toro have a long history of collaboration, and he has drawn on the BFI National Archive and British film history as a resource and inspiration for much of his career. As a young projectionist in Mexico he sourced prints from the BFI National Archive – including for Mexico’s first screening of Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom.  At a TCM event in LA earlier this year that celebrated the BFI National Archive’s 90^th Anniversary, del Toro and BFI Chief Executive Ben Roberts discussed his profound love for cinema and the British films and filmmakers who have influenced him, from Alfred Hitchcock and his silent era The Lodger (1927), Thorold Dickinson’s Gaslight (1940), Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948) –  which inspired The Shape of Water, to Martin Rosen’s Watership Down (1978).

Guillermo del Toro said “This is the honor of a lifetime and a thrilling moment in a storyteller’s life: to join a rarefied pantheon and to be recognized by the BFI.  I have been greatly influenced by British film and have enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with great talent on both sides of the camera going back decades. I thank everyone at the BFI for this great distinction. I will endeavour myself to work hard to prove myself worthy of their faith in me.”

BFI Chair Jay Hunt said “Guillermo del Toro is an extraordinary filmmaker with a long relationship with the BFI who has consistently championed British talent.  His collaborations here speak to the strength of our wider screen industries and the skilled people who power them.  His body of work is instantly recognisable as boldly imaginative and fantastical. In awarding a BFI Fellowship to Guillermo del Toro, we recognise his remarkable contribution to cinema and the inspiration and magic he has brought to filmmakers and audiences here and around the world.” 

While he was making films from the age of eight with his Super 8 camera, del Toro’s professional career began writing and directing several episodes of the cult Mexican TV series Hora marcada (“Marked Hour”). He made ten short films before he wrote and directed his debut feature Cronos, released in 1992. Del Toro’s new take on the vampire movie has since become regarded as one of the most important Mexican, and horror, films of all time. Starring Federico Luppi and Ron Perlman (who both went on to become regular cast members in del Toro’s films), Cronos won nine Ariel awards in Mexico and the Cannes Critics Week Grand Prize. It also led to Miramax funding del Toro’s next feature – the big budget sci-fi horror Mimic in 1997.

After making Spanish language, Civil- War set ghost story The Devil’s Backbone in 2001, del Toro returned to Hollywood to make the pop-noir action film Blade II (2002) with Wesley Snipes, many consider it the best in the franchise. Inspired by a comic book character, Hellboy (2004) and sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) are visually astounding and star del Toro regular Ron Perlman as the anti-hero investigator. In 2013, del Toro took inspiration from the mecha genre, popular in Japanese anime, manga and video games and cowrote and directed the sci-fi action film Pacific Rim.  Del Toro is credited on ten video games and cites legendary creator Hideo Kojima as an influence.

The influence of del Toro’s decade in the 1980’s working as a special effects makeup artist and deep love of lavish production design is clear throughout his films. In Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) del Toro weaved the imaginary world of fairy tales with the reality of the Spanish Civil war to huge critical acclaim. The film was nominated for six, and won three Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Makeup.  Crimson Peak (2015) is his homage to the Gothic romance genre, drawing on British literary influences with meticulous production design.  The Shape of Water (2016), starring Sally Hawkins, won four Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director, alongside a BAFTA and Golden Globe, and stands as one of his most acclaimed modern fairy tale romances. More Awards success came in 2022 with Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio which won the Outstanding Animated Feature Academy Award and is a visually stunning stop motion musical based on the classic fairy tale and set in pre-war fascist Italy.

Del Toro’s most recent film Frankenstein (2025) combines so many of his motifs and influences. Long fascinated by Mary Shelley’s novel, del Toro said that watching James Whale’s 1931 adaptation Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein starring Boris Karloff started his lifelong love of the story. Starring Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as The Creature and Mia Goth as Elizabeth, the film combines del Toro’s signature intricate and spectacular production design and practical effects together with the emotional empathy so symbolic of his work. Premiering in August 2025 to great critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival, Frankenstein premiered in the UK at the BFI London Film Festival in October 2025 and is currently available on Netflix.

Guillermo del Toro will be joining the distinguished ranks of other BFI Fellows including David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Ousmane Sembène, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu and, most recently, Tilda Swinton, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan, Prof. Laura Mulvey and Tom Cruise.