Frankenstein is a film the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has pursued professionally for over twenty years…but really, his obsession with this story began when he was seven. Seeing Boris Karloff in James Whale’s iconic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel on television as a child awakened an obsession in del Toro. He sketched the Creature incessantly in his younger years, later became engrossed with Shelley’s novel, and from the moment his career as a filmmaker began, echoes of Victor Frankenstein and his Creature reverberated through his work. “Monsters have become my belief system,” del Toro recently shared, and after several cinematic chapters in his own Gothic scripture, the film he’s been longing to create is finally here.

To celebrate the long-awaited release of Frankenstein, written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, the Paris Theater is proud to present MONSTERS AND MAKERS: The Gothic Visions of Guillermo del Toro, a complete retrospective of del Toro’s feature films that will take you on a fantastical journey through the director’s many wondrous, otherworldly creations, and the dark sides of humanity they reveal. 

MONSTERS AND MAKERS begins Thursday, October 9 with the New York premiere of a new 4K restoration of del Toro’s lauded debut feature Cronos. Then, we’ll screen every feature film from the director’s storied career, with screenings happening on a near-weekly basis through February. Among the gifted artist’s many treasures, we’ll present del Toro’s Director’s Cut of Mimic, 35mm showings of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Crimson Peak, and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (an Oscar winner for Best Animated Feature), a Dolby Atmos presentation of Pacific Rim, a 4K restoration of The Devil’s Backbone, and the special, black-and-white director’s cut edition of Best Picture nominee Nightmare Alley: Vision in Darkness and Light.

As a bonus treat, MONSTERS AND MAKERS also includes screenings of film that are key inspirations to del Toro’s entire oeuvre, and can be particularly felt throughout his version of Frankenstein. Those films include James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein, and 35mm shows of Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête and Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive.