Overview
When Guillermo del Toro last made a movie for Netflix — and last made a movie, too — Pinocchio not only streamed via the platform, but had a date with cinemas, where all of the director's films should be seen, first. The same plan is in place for the filmmaker's next picture, thankfully, the streamer has just announced. Del Toro officially adapting Frankenstein after riffing on it across his career? Now that absolutely demands the big-screen treatment.
Netflix has revealed that the Oscar Isaac (Moon Knight)- and Jacob Elordi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)-starring take on Mary Shelley's horror masterpiece will release in select picture palaces on Thursday, October 23, 2025. To watch it at home, it'll be available to stream from Friday, November 7, 2025
Oscar-winning The Shape of Water director del Toro will be the first to tell anyone, as he did at Neflix's annual Tudum event for 2025, that he's long had an obsession with Frankenstein, that he's been weaving that affection for it into his work since he first hopped behind the camera and that making his own adaptation of the gothic-horror masterpiece is a dream come true. "This is, for me, the culmination of a journey that has occupied most of my life," he advised the crowd at the time.
So far, from its trailer and images, that love for Shelley's now 207-year-old novel is evident in every frame of del Toro's Frankenstein. "I first read Mary Shelley's book as a kid, and saw Boris Karloff in what became, for me, an almost-religious stage," he continued at Tudum while accompanied by Isaac and co-star Mia Goth (MaXXXine). "Monsters have become my personal belief system. There are strands of Frankenstein throughout my films — Cronos, Blade, Hellboy, big time on Pinocchio, and a long, long [list], et cetera."
Isaac portrays the feature's namesake, aka Victor Frankenstein, the scientist driven by tragedy to attempt to conquer the line between life and what exists beyond it. As the trailer notes, "only monsters play god". As Victor advises himself, "in seeking life, I created death". Also uttered in the movie's debut sneak peek, reinforcing its theme: "what manner of creature is that? What manner of devil made him?".
Goth is Elizabeth, Victor's fiancée. From there, Christoph Waltz (Old Guy), Ralph Ineson (The Fantastic Four: First Steps), Charles Dance (The Day of the Jackal), Lars Mikkelsen (Dalloway) and del Toro regular Burn Gorman (Pacific Rim, Crimson Peak, Pinocchio) are also part of the cast.
Frankenstein will never stop entrancing filmmakers, as it has James Whale back in 1931 when Karloff played the monster, Mel Brooks (Dracula: Dead and Loving It) with 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein, Kenneth Branagh (A Haunting in Venice) on his 1994 take, Danny Boyle (28 Years Later) with his stage adaptation, Tim Burton (Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) via Frankenweenie and Yorgis Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness) in Poor Things, plus Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter) with 2026's The Bride!, just to name a few other examples.
Check out the trailer for Frankenstein below:
Frankenstein is releasing in select cinemas on Thursday, October 23, 2025 — and streaming via Netflix from Friday, November 7, 2025.
Images: Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.