Frankenstein (2025) Reviews: What Critics Said

Editorial note: This is a roundup of published criticism of Frankenstein. Celluloid has not screened the film for this piece, and it carries no Celluloid rating. The critics are named and linked under Sources.

Is Frankenstein worth watching?

Most critics say yes, with reservations: Guillermo del Toro’s long-planned adaptation of Mary Shelley was widely admired as a lavish, sincere Gothic epic, with Jacob Elordi’s Creature its emotional core. Reviewers were dazzled by the design and moved by the film’s sympathy for its monster. The recurring complaints are that it is long, overstuffed and too insistent about how the audience should feel.

What is Frankenstein about?

Dr Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist, brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that sets creator and creation on a tragic course. Guillermo del Toro wrote and directed the film from Mary Shelley’s novel. It was released in 2025, in cinemas and then on Netflix, and runs 150 minutes. Oscar Isaac plays Victor and Jacob Elordi plays the Creature, with Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Felix Kammerer, Charles Dance and David Bradley. Release details and where to watch are on the Frankenstein film page.

What critics praised

In Empire, Jamie Graham saw the film as both an unusually faithful adaptation of Shelley’s book and a boldly personal one. He was struck by how every frame is loaded with burnished imagery, symbolism and ornate production design, praised Mike Hill’s elegant Creature design, and concluded that this is a big film with an enormous beating heart.

John Bleasdale of Time Out enjoyed it as loud, bombastic, sublime and silly all at once. He called Isaac superb as a Victor who is as much artist as scientist, and admired Elordi’s take on the Creature as a yearning, oversized teenager uneasy in his stitched-together body. He also noted, with some amusement, that the film is as much swooning romance as it is Shelley.

For Screen Daily, Tim Grierson found Isaac and Elordi superb as the ethically hideous doctor and his innocent creation. He admired the lavish Gothic melodrama of crumbling castles and ornate interiors and the compassion del Toro extends to the Creature, which in his view makes clear who the real monster is. He thought the film works best at its most operatic.

Katie Rife of The A.V. Club felt some scenes play like thesis statements for del Toro’s entire career, and she valued how the film brings out the religious allegory in Shelley’s novel and the Creature’s existential torment. She also noted that the film’s considerable budget is visible on screen.

Where critics were divided

Length and tone were the main sticking points. Graham, despite his enthusiasm, found the film somewhat overstuffed and felt the two-and-a-half-hour running time makes it a lot to take in. Rife was sharper: she counted only a few minutes of lightness or humour across nearly two and a half hours, and felt the unbroken solemnity weighs the film down.

Grierson thought del Toro’s screenplay occasionally awkward and on the nose, undercutting the quieter moments; Victor’s longing for Elizabeth, played by Mia Goth, did not resonate for him, and her bond with the Creature felt forced. He summed it up as a triumph of spectacle over nuance.

Stephanie Zacharek of Time, whose review judged the film grand but not quite great, admired its handmade craftsmanship and found Isaac persuasive and Elordi deeply affecting. Her objection was that the film manufactures feeling rather than drawing it out of the viewer, and that Alexandre Desplat’s score often swells just when audiences might prefer to be left alone with their emotions. She contrasted it with James Whale’s 1931 version, which she felt earned sympathy for its creature more quietly. Bleasdale, meanwhile, expected some viewers to balk at the Creature’s near-superhuman powers of healing.

Who is it for?

The film suits admirers of del Toro’s Gothic romances, such as The Shape of Water, and viewers who want a sympathetic, sweeping version of the Frankenstein story rather than a lean horror film. Critics describe grotesque, bloody moments, and it is rated R in the US and 15 in the UK. Patience helps, given the running time. More titles are collected under horror.

The critical verdict

The critics here agree that del Toro’s Frankenstein is a labour of love, handsomely made and anchored by an affecting Creature from Elordi and a strong turn from Isaac. Where they part company is on restraint: several found it bloated, humourless or emotionally heavy-handed. Most still judged it a rich, heartfelt adaptation worth the investment of time.