Guillermo del Toro Honored with Prestigious BFI Fellowship

BFI will honor filmmaker Guillermo del Toro with its highest accolade, a BFI Fellowship, recognizing his “extraordinary contribution to film and the distinctive artistry that runs through his work across animation and live action, and as a Mexican filmmaker, in both Spanish and English.”

Guillermo del Toro said “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.”

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 outstanding debut feature Cronos (1992), recently remastered in 4K by the BFI and Les Films du Camelia, overseen by del Toro and in cinemas UK wide.

Del Toro will also make a special visit to the BFI National Archive as part of the Fellowship celebration. The BFI and del Toro have a long history of collaboration, and he has drawn on the BFI National Archive and British film history as a resource and inspiration for much of his career.

BFI Chair Jay Hunt said “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.”

Long fascinated by Mary Shelley’s novel, Del Toro’s most recent film Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi as The Creature and Mia Goth as Elizabeth. Frankenstein premiered in the UK at the BFI London Film Festival and is currently streaming on Netflix.

Guillermo del Toro will be joining the distinguished ranks of other BFI Fellows including 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.