Former Best Picture and Best Director Oscar winner Guillermo Del Toro added three more Oscars-by-proxy to his awards cabinet last night, when the Screen Scotland-backed Frankenstein picked up an aesthetically-led triple for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Production Design at the annual Hollywood shindig.
The movie was partly filmed across Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Arbroath, and Glencoe and is a striking showcase of Scotland’s locations.
Based on the classic gothic novel by British author Mary Shelley, it also shot at locations across England, including Wilton House, Burleigh House and Elstree Studios.
Del Toro will also be receiving a BFI Fellowship, the organisation’s highest honour, in May 2026 to celebrate his work and long history of inspiration and collaboration with British cinema.
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Frankenstein producer Scott Stuber is also a BFI Board Member.
This isn’t the first time Mexican filmmmaker Del Toro has put the region on the map with Oscars glory. In 2023 his film Pinocchio, with puppets courtesy of longstanding Altrincham puppetmeisters MacKinnon & Saunders, picked up Best Feature Animation at the Oscars, completing another triple crown of Golden Globe, BAFTA and Oscar for the film.
He said at the time of that win: “This film required hundreds of people and we poured ourselves into this…The team in Guadalajara and also in Manchester, our puppet makers, it’s a huge effort.”
He added presciently: “Animation is not a genre for kids. It’s a medium for art, it’s a medium for film and I think animation should stay in the conversation,” before thanking Netflix for “thinking that a musical of Pinocchio, about life and death, where everybody dies at the end, during the rise of Mussolini, was a good idea.”
Frankenstein was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay this year, although on this occasion Del Toro lost out on the “big” awards, with Paul Thomas Anderson’s A-list-heavy black comedy One Battle After Another taking both the Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay gongs at its expense. Thomas Anderson’s film’s ensemble cast included Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti.
Image: Netflix
