Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director and author best known in America for his two critically acclaimed fantasy films, Pan's Labyrinth and The Shape of Water. Throughout his career, he has directed both low-budget Spanish language films, as well as expensive Hollywood action films, including Cronos, Blade II, Hellboy, and Crimson Peak.
del Toro was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and raised in a strict household. He took an early interest in film, and studied at the Centro de Investigacion y Estudios Cinematograficos at the University of Guadalajara. After spending 10 years as a special effects makeup designer, he directed the film Mimic, an American science-fiction horror film, in 1997. Throughout the 2000s, he directed a wide range of films, such as The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, and the upcoming Pinocchio.
del Toro is known for his treatment of supernatural and allegorical subjects, and his preoccupation with both fantasy and horror as genres. In an interview with Rüdiger Sturm for the website The Talks, he said, "I am in love with monsters in a way that is very intimate and spiritual. I am still moved by the creature of Frankenstein, by all the classical monsters in a way that is very close to religion," and called monsters "the patron saints of the outsiders." In 2018, del Toro won the Academy Award for Best Director for his direction of The Shape of Water.
Cronos is Guillermo del Toro's first feature film. Released in 1993, It set him off as one the freshest directors to watch for as critically the film was praised, though it did not receive a wide American distribution (only 28 theaters). It was...
Pan's Labyrinth is a Mexican-Spanish fantasy film from 2006, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It stars Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu, Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, and Ariadna Gil. It incorporates animatronics and CGI as a way of building its...
The Shape of Water—released in 2017—is rare in Guillermo Del Toro's oeuvre as a film that's relatively optimistic. It's also the first film of Del Toro's to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, which it did in 2018. The film also snagged awards...
