Alongside Clive and Karloff, the film's cast also includes Mae Clarke, John Boles, Dwight Frye, and Edward Van Sloan.

Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, the film was a commercial success upon release, and was generally well received by both critics and audiences.

It spawned a number of sequels and spin-offs, and has had a significant impact on popular culture: the imagery of a maniacal "mad" scientist with a hunchbacked assistant and the film's depiction of Frankenstein's monster have since become iconic.

In 1991, the United States Library of Congress selected Frankenstein for preservation in the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

[4][5] In a village of the Bavarian Alps, Henry Frankenstein and his assistant Fritz, a hunchback, piece together a human body.

In a laboratory he's built inside a watchtower, Henry desires to create a human, giving this body life through electrical devices.

Some of the villagers bring him home while the rest of the mob set the windmill ablaze, with the Monster trapped inside with nowhere to escape.

Within 48 hours of its opening at New York's Roxy Theatre on February 12, 1931, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi had sold 50,000 tickets, building a momentum that culminated in a $700,000 profit, the largest of Universal's 1931 releases.

[8] Immediately following his success in Dracula, Lugosi had hoped to play Henry Frankenstein in Universal's original film concept.

However, the actor was expected by producer Carl Laemmle Jr. to play the Monster[9] (a common move for a contract player in a film studio at the time) to keep his famous name on the bill.

Although this is often regarded as one of the worst decisions in any actor's career, in actuality, the part that Lugosi was offered was not the same character that Karloff eventually played.

The initial director was Robert Florey, who had re-characterized the Monster as a simple killing machine, without a touch of human interest or pathos, unlike in the original Shelley novel.

These included Frederick Kerr as the old Baron Frankenstein, Henry's father; Lionel Belmore as Herr Vogel, the Bürgermeister; Marilyn Harris as Little Maria, the girl the Monster accidentally kills; Dwight Frye as Frankenstein's hunchbacked assistant, Fritz; and Michael Mark as Ludwig, Maria's father.

They were so successful that such effects came to be considered an essential part of every subsequent Universal film involving Frankenstein's Monster.

[13] Those states also objected to a line they considered blasphemous that occurred during Frankenstein's exuberance when he first learns that his creature is alive.

[17] Jason Joy of the Studio Relations Committee sent censor representative Joseph Breen to urge them to reconsider.

[13] As with many pre-Code films that were reissued after strict enforcement of the Production Code in 1934, Universal made cuts from the original camera negative,[18] and thus most of the excised footage is often lost.

[19] In the Irish Free State, the film was banned on February 5, 1932, for being demoralizing and unsuitable for children or "nervous people" – age-restricted certificates were not introduced in the country until 1965.

[22] Film Daily also lauded the picture, calling it a "gruesome, chill-producing and exciting drama" that was "produced intelligently and lavishly and with a grade of photography that is superb".

[23] Variety reported that it "looks like a Dracula plus, touching a new peak in horror plays", and described Karloff's performance as "a fascinating acting bit of mesmerism".

[24] John Mosher of The New Yorker was less enthused, calling the film only a "moderate success" and writing that "the makeup department has a triumph to its credit in the monster and there lie the thrills of the picture, but the general fantasy lacks the vitality which that little Mrs. P.B.

[26] Frankenstein has continued to receive acclaim from critics and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1931,[27][28][29][30] as well as one of the greatest movies of all time.

The website's consensus reads: "Still unnerving to this day, Frankenstein adroitly explores the fine line between genius and madness, and features Boris Karloff's legendary, frightening performance as the monster.

"[33] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 91 out of 100, based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

[63][64] In September 2017, the film received a Best Buy-exclusive SteelBook Blu-ray release with cover artwork by Alex Ross.

[65] Frankenstein and its sequels were included in the Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection Blu-ray box set in August 2018.

[68] Later in October, Frankenstein was included as part of a limited edition Best Buy-exclusive Blu-ray set titled Universal Classic Monsters: The Essential Collection, which features artwork by Alex Ross.

[71][72] In Bride of Frankenstein, Frye plays "Karl", a murderer who stands upright but has a lumbering metal brace on both legs that can be heard clicking loudly with every step.

Regarding Son of Frankenstein, the film's director Rowland V. Lee said his crew let Lugosi "work on the characterization; the interpretation he gave us was imaginative and totally unexpected ... when we finished shooting, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he stole the show.

[79] In March 2020, Robbie Thompson was hired to serve as screenwriter, with the plot revolving around a group of teenagers who discover that a neighbor is creating a monster in their basement.