Del Toro’s most recent feature Frankenstein, starring Jacob Elordi, was partly filmed in UK locations

Guillermo del Toro is to be awarded a BFI Fellowship, the organisation’s highest accolade.

The award recognises the Mexican filmmaker’s contribution to film in both Spanish and English.

Del Toro’s distinctive style is largely that of dark horror and gothic fantasy, with lavish, fantastical worlds blended with motifs and influences from folklore, fairytales, literature, sci-fi, religion and comic books.

His oeuvre is vast, with his most recent feature, Frankenstein, having filmed partly in UK locations including Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Salisbury and Peterborough.

The BFI will award Guillermo del Toro his BFI Fellowship at the annual BFI chair’s dinner, hosted by BFI chair Jay Hunt, in London in May 2026. He will take part in a public Career Conversation at BFI Southbank, where, together with BFI IMAX and on BFI Player, he will also be celebrated with a retrospective, and he will curate a film season at BFI Southbank at a later date.

Del Toro will also deliver a series of Masterclasses to a group of young, aspiring filmmakers from the BFI Film Academy. In May, the BFI will re-release del Toro’s debut feature Cronos (1992), recently remastered in 4K by the BFI and Les Films du Camelia, overseen by del Toro.

The director said of the fellowship: “This is the honor of a lifetime and a thrilling moment in a storyteller’s life: to join a rarefied pantheon and to be recognized by the BFI. I have been greatly influenced by British film and have enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration with great talent on both sides of the camera going back decades. I thank everyone at the BFI for this great distinction. I will endeavour myself to work hard to prove myself worthy of their faith in me.”

BFI chair Hunt added: “Guillermo del Toro is an extraordinary filmmaker with a long relationship with the BFI who has consistently championed British talent. His collaborations here speak to the strength of our wider screen industries and the skilled people who power them.  

“His body of work is instantly recognisable as boldly imaginative and fantastical. In awarding a BFI Fellowship to Guillermo del Toro, we recognise his remarkable contribution to cinema and the inspiration and magic he has brought to filmmakers and audiences here and around the world.” 

Previous BFI Fellows include: David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Ousmane Sembène, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu and, most recently, Tilda Swinton, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson, Spike Lee, Christopher Nolan, Prof. Laura Mulvey and Tom Cruise.