Guillermo del Toro Gómez (Spanish: [ɡiˈʝeɾmo ðel ˈtoɾo]; born 9 October 1964) is a Mexican filmmaker, author, and artist.

His work has been characterized by a strong connection to fairy tales, gothicism and horror often blending the genres, with an effort to infuse visual or poetic beauty in the grotesque.

[2] Known for pioneering dark fantasy in the film industry and for his use of insectile and religious imagery, his themes of Catholicism, and celebrating imperfection, underworld motifs, practical special effects, and dominant amber lighting.

[3][4][5] Throughout his career, del Toro has shifted between Spanish-language films—such as Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001), and Pan's Labyrinth (2006)—and English-language films, including Mimic (1997), Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Pacific Rim (2013), Crimson Peak (2015), The Shape of Water (2017), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022).

He was included in Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018,[7] and he received a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2019.

[11] Raised in a strict Catholic household,[12] he attended the University of Guadalajara's Centro de Investigación y Estudios Cinematográficos (Film Studies Center).

[13] When del Toro was about eight years old, he began experimenting with his father's Super 8 camera, making short films with Planet of the Apes toys and other objects.

One short focused on a "serial killer potato" with ambitions of world domination; it murdered del Toro's mother and brothers before stepping outside and being crushed by a car.

Vandals burglarized the studio one night and destroyed the puppets and sets, which put an end to his project as del Toro decided to switch to a live-action film, Cronos.

[22] Del Toro has directed a wide variety of films, from comic book adaptations (Blade II, Hellboy and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army) to historical fantasy and horror films, two of which are set in Spain in the context of the Spanish Civil War under the authoritarian rule of Francisco Franco.

[29] On 1 December 2008, del Toro expressed interest in a stop-motion remake of Roald Dahl's novel The Witches in collaboration with Alfonso Cuarón.

[30] On 19 June 2018, it was announced that Del Toro and Cuarón would instead be attached as executive producers on the remake with Robert Zemeckis helming the project and writing.

Del Toro cites writings of Antoine Augustin Calmet, Montague Summers and Bernhardt J. Hurwood among his favourites in the non-literary form about vampires.

[32] On 9 December 2010, del Toro launched Mirada Studios with his long-time cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, director Mathew Cullen and executive producer Javier Jimenez.

In the film, giant monsters rise from the Pacific Ocean and attack major cities, leading humans to retaliate with gigantic mecha suits called Jaegers.

[37] After The Strain's pilot episode, del Toro directed Crimson Peak, a gothic horror film he co-wrote with Matthew Robbins and Lucinda Cox.

Del Toro has described the film as "a very set-oriented, classical but at the same time modern take on the ghost story", citing The Omen, The Exorcist and The Shining as influences.

[41][42] Del Toro directed the Cold War drama film The Shape of Water, starring Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, and Michael Shannon.

[citation needed] In 2019, del Toro appeared in Hideo Kojima's video game Death Stranding, providing his likeness for the character Deadman.

In December 2017, Searchlight Pictures announced that del Toro would direct a new adaptation of the 1946 novel Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham, the screenplay of which he co-wrote with his future wife Kim Morgan.

[56] In 2019, it was reported that Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette and Rooney Mara had closed deals to star in the film, which went into production in January 2020.

[66] Del Toro revealed plans to direct a stop-motion adaptation of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel The Buried Giant in January 2023, which he is co-writing with Dennis Kelly, as well as an as-yet unrevealed live-action film that he will shoot first.

[68] In March, 2023, it was confirmed that Oscar Isaac, Andrew Garfield and Mia Goth were in talks to star in his long in-development Frankenstein film, now based at Netflix.

[76] Del Toro maintains homes in Toronto and Los Angeles, and returns to his native Guadalajara every six weeks to visit his family.

He pointed out that the villains in most of his films (such as the industrialist in Cronos, the Nazis in Hellboy, Italian Fascism in Pinocchio, and the Francoists in Pan's Labyrinth) are united by the common attribute of authoritarianism: "I hate structure.

[80] He also said that he was horrified by the way the Catholic Church complied with Francoist Spain, and even had a character in one of his films quote what actual priests would say to Republican faction members in concentration camps.

"[86] While studying at university, del Toro published his first book when he wrote a biography of English filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, whom he has long praised and admired.

[87] In 2010, del Toro revealed that he was a fan of video games, describing them as "the comic books of our time" and "a medium that gains no respect among the intelligentsia".

[95] He has cited Hayao Miyazaki as one of his influences and one of his favorite storytellers in any medium, having identified with his style and influence through his Toei Animation and Studio Ghibli projects like The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots, Heidi, Girl of the Alps, My Neighbor Totoro, and The Boy and the Heron from childhood to adulthood, praising how he evokes the emotion of recognizing an impossible beauty only existing in films and realistically depicting brutal themes that affect the best and the worth of humanity, deeming Miyazaki an entirely genuine one-of-a-kind creator who exists fully in his art.

In a 2008 interview with Time magazine, he mentioned the kidnapping of his father: "Every day, every week, something happens that reminds me that I am in involuntary exile [from my country].