Premiered at the Venice Film Festival to an extended standing ovation, Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein arrives on Netflix with a cast of striking power and a director whose gothic vision fuses grandeur and intimate feeling.
A classic of world literature and a timeless meditation on the duality of human nature, Frankenstein is reborn in 2025 through the eyes of one of cinema’s most visionary auteurs. Del Toro’s long-awaited adaptation, hailed as one of his most personal works since Pan’s Labyrinth, reimagines Shelley’s myth as both spectacle and confession — a story where love and terror share the same heartbeat.
This piece explores how Frankenstein on Netflix becomes not just a retelling of Mary Shelley’s legend, but a collaboration between vision and performance. Del Toro’s direction and the film’s extraordinary cast — Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth — breathe new life into the tale, transforming horror into something intimate, tragic, and profoundly human. Here is our review.
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Guillermo del Toro, director of Frankenstein on Netflix
A Lifelong Obsession Brought to Life
For del Toro, Frankenstein is not just another project, it’s a story that has shadowed and inspired his entire career. From the tragic innocence of the Faun in Pan’s Labyrinth, to the tender monstrosity of The Shape of Water, and the soulful puppet yearning for freedom in Pinocchio, Shelley’s influence runs deep. He has often spoken of identifying with her creature: “a misunderstood being searching for beauty in a world that rejects it.” This new film feels like the culmination of that lifelong dialogue between the artist and his muse – a cinematic letter to Mary Shelley herself.
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A Tale of Creation, Isolation, and the Limits of Love
Del Toro’s Frankenstein reimagines the iconic myth not merely as horror, but as an emotional epic about creation, responsibility, and the pain of being alive. Oscar Isaac embodies Victor Frankenstein — a brilliant scientist consumed by divine ambition, while Jacob Elordi delivers a haunting, physical performance as the creature: part child, part killer, both beautiful and horrifying. Del Toro emphasizes his animalistic brutality and spiritual fragility, often framing him like a fallen angel rather than a monster.
We will defy God Himself.
Isaac in Del Toro’s Frankenstein on Netflix
The story dives deep into Shelley’s timeless questions: What makes us human? Can love redeem our ugliness? And is creation itself an act of hubris or hope? Themes of alienation, innocence, brutality, death, and the longing for transcendence weave together into a meditation on the fragility of life — and the boundless ache of existence.
Del Toro’s Frankenstein doesn’t just retell Shelley’s story; it transforms it into a mirror for modern anxieties. It asks what we risk when we try to transcend our mortality – and what remains when we fail. Dreams shatter, love curdles, and yet, amid the decay, something luminous persists: the desperate, enduring hope to be seen, to be loved, to belong. In del Toro’s hands, the monster is all of us — fragile creatures yearning for warmth in a cold, indifferent world.
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The cast of Frankenstein on Netflix
Frankenstein assembles a powerful trio of performances under del Toro’s masterful direction. Oscar Isaac embodies Victor Frankenstein, the brilliant yet tormented scientist driven by an insatiable hunger to conquer death. Known for his range in Ex Machina, Scenes from a Marriage, and Dune: Part Two, Isaac infuses Victor with both intellectual arrogance and aching vulnerability, creating a portrait of genius corroded by obsession.
As the Creature, Jacob Elordi (Priscilla, Saltburn) delivers a performance of haunting tenderness. Far from a monster of brute force, his Creature is fragile, poetic, and full of yearning – a soul awakened into a world that refuses to love him. Elordi’s physicality and restraint reveal an actor entering new artistic territory, earning early praise for his emotional precision and quiet power.
Among the film’s revelations is Mia Goth, whose performance has drawn early critical acclaim. As Elizabeth Lavenza, Victor’s fiancée and moral compass, Goth anchors the film in an aching humanity. She plays Elizabeth not as a passive victim, but as a woman torn between devotion and dread – embodying both tenderness and prophetic despair. Her ethereal presence, familiar from X and Emma, becomes here something tragic and elemental: she is life itself, fragile, yearning, and doomed. Critics at Venice called her performance “a soft-spoken storm,” grounding the film’s grandiose horror in quiet emotional truth.
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Together, these three performances form the emotional architecture of Frankenstein, giving del Toro’s gothic spectacle its human pulse. For readers searching the lineup, the Frankenstein Netflix cast is headlined by Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, and Mia Goth.
Frankenstein, Netflixs: awards and reviews
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein premiered to widespread critical acclaim on the festival circuit, earning a standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival 2025 and instant awards-season buzz. Critics praised the film’s blend of gothic grandeur and emotional intimacy, calling it “a work of brutal beauty” and “a resurrection of classic horror with a beating human heart.”
Oscar Isaac has been singled out for a career-defining performance, with many predicting his first Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Reviewers lauded his portrayal of Victor Frankenstein as “a study in moral decay and divine arrogance,” comparing his intensity to Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood. Jacob Elordi’s transformation as the Creature has also drawn major attention, with The Guardian describing his work as “both heartbreaking and transcendent,” placing him firmly among Hollywood’s most promising dramatic actors.
But it is Mia Goth who has emerged as the film’s emotional revelation. Following her acclaimed turns in Pearl and X, Goth’s luminous performance as Elizabeth has been celebrated as “the soul of the film,” with several critics naming her among the frontrunners for Best Supporting Actress. Her portrayal has been described as “a quiet miracle of empathy,” grounding del Toro’s lavish vision in raw, human vulnerability.
Del Toro himself has been hailed as having achieved one of his finest works since Pan’s Labyrinth, balancing visual opulence with philosophical depth. Many outlets, from Variety to IndieWire, have placed Frankenstein among the strongest contenders of the 2025 awards season, praising its artistry, ambition, and timeless resonance.
Release date
Frankenstein will stream on November 7, 2025. Watch on Netflix.
Frankenstein, Netflix TRAILER: A first glimpse into Del Toro’s vision
The recently released teaser trailer encapsulates del Toro’s aesthetic: grand, mournful, and saturated in visual poetry. We glimpse storm-soaked laboratories, candle-lit corridors, and the flicker of creation under lightning’s flash. A slow, haunting rendition of a classical hymn swells over the images, while Isaac’s trembling voice whispers, “We will defy God Himself.”
The brief final shot — Elordi’s creature emerging from shadow, eyes filled with both rage and wonder — captures everything del Toro has promised: terror, beauty, and heartbreak in equal measure.
Review by Leila Magnolia Luciano
